Richard Lemmens website
Copyright:
Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike
This text content and maps on this page are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license license. This means that: adapting the content is allowed; using the content for commercial purposes is not allowed; sharing and redistributing the content with others is allowed. If you do any of the above, you must attribute your copy to its creator, Richard Lemmens, and make sure any alterations and distributions are licensed in the same way as the original. More info about Creative Commons licenses can be found at the Creative Commons website.

Warmatrix

War Matrix - Hill fort

Late Bronze Age 1600 BCE - 1100 BCE, Weapons and technology

Maiden Castle
Maiden Castle
Most hill forts were simple forts built on top of a hill. They consisted of one or more ramparts that enclosed a central courtyard. The ramparts were usually just made of earth, though sometimes also of stone and/or wood. They did not have towers, keeps or gatehouses like castles do. They did sometimes have multiple ramparts, forcing attackers into a zig-zag approach and exposing them to counterattack. Some hill forts were not based on hills but sea cliffs, peninsulas, or even lowland plains.
Most hill forts were temporary places of refuge to protect people and livestock, discouraging attack and tempting enemy raiders to move elsewhere for easier pickings. They lacked the sturdiness, provisions and regular garrison of a true fortress to withstand a prolonged siege, but got away with that because sieges were very rare in the Bronze Age.
Some however developed into permanent settlements.
Though hill forts were probably as old as villages, they did not proliferate before the end of the Bronze Age. Most of them are found in Europe, or maybe that is where most of them remain; many hill forts have formed the basis of later stone fortresses.