Category: Hill Fort

The Story of Boltby Scar

Boltby Church, Yorkshire Moors

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.

Swaledale

2015 Swaledale from Kisdon Hill

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.

The hero archetype and Lugh

Museum of Anatolian Civilizations Çatalhöyük Leopard reliefs all in 2019 01

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.

Castro de Trona fort – Pontevedra, Spain

Petroglifo castro Troña

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.

Wincobank Hill Fort

Wincobank Fort – LiDAR – National Library of Scotland 3

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

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

Tor Dyke

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.

Hillforts: Defence or Ritual? – Part 1

View to Yeavering Bell

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.

Guide: Hillfort Mounds of Europe

Trelleborg airphoto

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” …

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Drumanagh Promontory Fort – First Ever Intact Roman Pot Found in Ireland

Roman samian ware

RTE Ireland has reported that more recently they have made yet another remarkable discovery—an intact Roman pot. the first one to be uncovered on Irish soil, and providing more tantalising clues about ancient Roman-Irish interactions.

Although the Roman Empire they never reached Ireland (except, seemingly, in myth). That does not mean, that Roman influence and goods did enter Ireland, and it means that Drumanagh continues to headline as one of Irelands most tantalising archaeological sites for that same reason – exactly what were the Romans doing in Ireland?

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