Category: Hill Fort

Nov 23

The Story of Boltby Scar

Filed under Brigantes, Brigantia, Brigantia England, Britain, Bronze Age, Celtic Tribes, Defensive Dike, Defensive Walls, Dike, Europe, Fort, Hair Braid - Ring, Hill Fort, Iron Age, Landscape Archaeology, Linear Earthworks, Mining Landscape, Promontory fort, Stories of Brigantia

Boltby is a very important ancient site IMO. A gold “hair braid”, was found there, linking it to the Amesbury Archer, buried with two similar hair braids. This also provides a link to the founding of Stonehenge, which helps set a potential scene for a possible “zeitgeist”, of the day.

Amesbury Archer, boltby, Brigantia, Bronze Age, Dykes, Enclosure, Hair Braid, Roulston, Scar, Stonehenge, Stories of Brigantia, Yorkshire Moors
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Swaledale

Filed under Brigantia, Brigantia England, Britain, Cairn, Europe, Flint Scatters, Geology, Geomorphology, Hill Fort, Iron-Age, Megalithic, New Sites, Promontory fort, Ring Cairn, Rock Art, Univallet Hillfort

Swaledale occupies the long, sinuous valley carved by the River Swale on its 45-kilometre descent from Nine Standards Rigg (662 m) on the Pennine watershed to Richmond in lower Teesdale. The dale narrows between rough gritstone scarps near Keld, broadens to a patchwork of hay-meadows around Muker and Gunnerside, then opens into a tree-fringed flood-plain west of Reeth before the river cuts through the Carboniferous escarpment to meet the Vale of Mowbray.

Arkengarthdale, Bainbridge, Barns, Benedictine, Blakethwaite Smelt Mine, Brigante, Brigantes, Brigantia, Bunton, Buttertubs, cairn, Cateractonium, Catterick, Cistercian, Corpse-way, Crackpot, Craclpot, Cup-mark, Deer Park Wood, Downholme, Dyke, Dykes, East Gill Force, Ellerton Abbey, Enclosure Acts, field-barns, Fort, Fountains Abbey, Franciscan, Fremington Edge, Fremmington, Friary, Gangs Flats, Gill, Great Pinseat, Great Scar, Great Scar Limestone, Great Shunner, Greyfriars, Grinton, Grinton Moor, Gunnerside, Gunnerside Gill, Harkerside Moor, Hay-meadow, hay-meadows, Healaugh, Herkersdie Moor, Hill Fort, Hind Rake, How Hill, Humber-Flanders export route, Hunter Gatherer, Hush, Hushes, Iron Age, Ivelet Bridge, Keld, Keldside, Kisdon Force, Kisdon Hill, Lead Mining, Lead-veins, Lower Teasdale, Lower Teesdale, Maiden Castle, market, Marrick Priory, Marske, Marske Deer Park, Marske Hall, Meadow, Mine, Mining, monk, Monks, Muker, Norse, North Yorkshire, nun, Nuns, Old Gang, Packhorse Bridge, Parliamentary Walls, Penine Watershed, Pennine watershed, Reeth, Richmond, Rievaulx Abbey, Ring Cairn, River Swale, Rock, rock-art, Roman, Sheep, Shunner Fell, Skeb Skeugh, Smelt, smelting, St Martin's Priory, Stainmore, Standards Rigg, stone, Swale, Swaledale, Tan Hill, Tan Hill Pub, terraces, Thwaite, Trajanic Lead Pig, vale of Mowbray, Walburn, White Rigg, Wool, Yorkshire Dales
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Aug 02

The hero archetype and Lugh

Filed under Breogans, Britain, Bronze Age, Castro Hillfort, Celtic Gods, Celtic Life, Celtic Tribes, Dark Ages, Dragons, Early Christian, Early Medieval, France, Giants, Ireland, Iron Age, Lugh, Medieval, Mercury, Mesolithic, Myth and Legend, Neolithic, Palaeolithic, Portugal, Roman, Roman Culture, Roman Gods, Spain, The Devil, Viking, Wales

At its core the “hero” is the figure who steps out of ordinary society, confronts chaos or a monster, and returns (or dies) having secured order for the group. In Jungian and comparative-myth terms it sits in the “warrior-champion” slot of the collective story-board; evolutionists would say it crystallises the survival value of decisive coalition leadership in small bands.

!Kung, Ache, Achiles, Arjuna, Arthur, Balor's Eye, Bee, Bees, Bhagavad Gita, britain, Buffalo, Castro, Catalhoyuk, Cattle, Cúchulainn, Deity, Divinity, Egypt, Embodiment, France, Galicia, gaul, Geryon, Gilgamesh, Giraffe, Gobeki Tepe, god, Greogans, Haasi, Hadza, Hector, Heel, Heracles, Hercules, Hero, Hero Archetype, Hoan, Hunter Gatherer, Hydra, Integration, Inuit, ireland, Iron Age, Ivory, Kalahari Desert, Kudu, la tene, Lagash, Legend, Lion-Man, Lugh, mammoth, Mercury, MeriamTurtle, Mesopotamia, Monotheistic, myth, Narmer, Naro, Nuliajuk, pagan, Paraguay, Pharoh, Poigs, Proto-Hero, Raven, religion, Roman, Salish, Salmon, San Culture, Seal, Sedna, Serpent, Snake, Sockeye, Sorcerer, Spain, spear, St Michael, Sumer, Synchronicity, T-Pillars, Ulster, Zebra
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Castro de Trona fort – Pontevedra, Spain

Filed under Brigantia, Brigantia Espania, Castro Hillfort, Fort, Late Iron Age, New Sites, Roman, Terraces

Castro de Trona is an oval enclosure with significant terracing to the west and a large ditch to the east. This castro (a hillfort settlement) has an accepted date of around 600 BCE. Like many others in Galicia, this castro reached its peak during the 1st and 2nd centuries CE. It measures approximately 200 metres east to west by 150 metres north to south.

Brigantes, Brigantia, Castro, Castro de Troña, Fort, Galicia, Hill Fort, Iron Age, myth, mythology, Ponteareas, Pontevedra, Roman, Snakes, Spain
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Wincobank Hill Fort

Filed under Brigantia England, Britain, Bronze Age, Hill Fort, Iron Age, Mesolithic, Roman, Vitrified Fort

This is an oval fort with an internal area of 2.5 acres. A bank, ditch and counterscarp bank are continuous around it except on the N side where ditch and counterscarp have been destroyed.

Scoles Coppice Fort

Filed under Brigantia, Brigantia England, Fort, Hill Fort, Iron Age

Scholes (or Scoles) Coppice Camp (sometimes called “Caesar’s Camp”) lies just north-west of Kimberworth in Rotherham, atop the same Magnesian Limestone ridge that carries the Roman Rig. Its grid reference is roughly SE 436 937, placing it only 200–300 m to the north of the Rig’s northern branch

Brigantes, Brigantia, Camp, Enclosure, Hill Fort, Iron Age, Roman Rig, Scoles Coppice, South Yorkshire
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Tor Dyke

Filed under Dike, Hill Fort, Iron Age

Tor Dyke appears to have been attributed to Venutius which dates it of the period AD 52 – 70. The presence of a legionary size marching camp a few miles to the southwest at Malham certainly indicates an active role in the Roman advance of AD 70. However, given the lack of published research so far a clear picture has yet to emerge.

Jun 16

Hillforts: Defence or Ritual? – Part 1

Filed under Archaeology, Brigantia, Brigantia England, Britain, Critical Thinking, Defensive Structures, Earthworks, Guide, Hill Fort, Univallet Hillfort, Vitrified Fort

Over the last five years Iron-Age specialists have been re-examining what British hillforts were really for. The question is no longer just “fortress or farm?” but whether many of them were built first and foremost as places of gathering, display and ritual.

Ad Gefrin, Barry Cunliffe, battle, Bowden, Castle Dykes, Ceremony, Debate, Defence, Hill Fort, Hill of Tara, hillfort, Iron Age, Julius Caesar, Maiden Castle, McOmish, Mortimer Wheeler, Northumberland, Paulinus, Ringforts, ritual, Ritual First, tacitus, Thornborough Henges, vitrified, Yeavering Bell
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Jun 10

Guide: Hillfort Mounds of Europe

Filed under Archaeology, Castro Hillfort, Contour/Plateau Fort, Europe, Guide, Hidden Remains, Hill Fort, Landscape Archaeology, Landscape feature, Multivallete Hillfort, New Sites, Oppidum, Promontory fort, Slavic Gord, Univallet Hillfort, Vitrified Fort

Guide: Common Features of Iron Age Hillforts This article attempts to serve as a guide for many of the features of the hillforts found in Britain, in Read more Guide: Iron-Age minting: Ceramic pellet-mould trays This article explores the most tangible evidence we possess for indigenous minting north of the Humber: the smashed ceramic “pellet-mould” …