hill fort

European Iron Age site with massive banks and ditches for defence, used as both a military camp and a permanent settlement. Examples found across Europe, in particular France, central Germany, and the British Isles, include Heuneberg near Sigmaringen, Germany, Spinans Hill in County Wicklow, Ireland, and Maiden Castle, Dorset, England.

Iron Age Germanic peoples spread the tradition of forts with massive defences, timberwork reinforcements, and sometimes elaborately defended gateways with guardrooms, the whole being overlooked from a rampart walk, as at Maiden Castle. The ramparts usually follow the natural line of a hilltop and are laid out to avoid areas of dead ground.

Other sites in the British Isles include Danebury in Hampshire, Hollingbury in Sussex, Yarnbury in Wiltshire, Navan Fort near Armagh, Northern Ireland, and a number in the hill country of Wales and the north.

Hill forts with a single ditch and bank usually date from the earliest part of the Iron Age, whereas those with more complex defences came later, but many were modified or rebuilt. Bredon Hill, Worcestershire, England, built about 50 BC, was refortified almost a century later with a great double gate. Excavation showed that it collapsed upon its attackers, crushing them to death. Many hill forts were occupied well into the Roman era and these centres can sometimes be linked with the establishment of a Roman town nearby.