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From football stadium to Iron Age hillfort. Creating a taxonomy of Wessex hillfort communities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 May 2015

Oliver Davis
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Abstract

The variability of Wessex hillfort form, use and development has long been noted, but not satisfactorily explained. This paper seeks to explain this variability and suggests that each hillfort may have had its own distinctive history of use, dependent upon the nature of the hillfort community – the people who visited, inhabited and used the hillfort. This paper starts by using grid–group analysis to define identities that can be found among modern communities – such as that of spectators of contemporary professional football clubs – which helps to frame our understanding of hillfort communities as constituted of households with differing motivations, loyalties and identification with the material environment. The variable trajectories of hillfort development are thus explained by the changing cultural relationships between Iron Age households and hillforts.

Keywords

grid–groupflâneurhouseholdidentityhillfort community
Type
Articles
Information
Archaeological Dialogues , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , June 2015 , pp. 45 - 64
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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