Hillforts: Prehistoric Strongholds of Northumberland National Park

Description

Iron Age hillforts in Northumberland National Park are extraordinarily well preserved, rivalling anything to be found elsewhere in Europe. While the interiors of most hillforts in southern England have been hidden or disfigured by later land use, most of those in Northumberland national park have been left relatively untouched in since they were last occupied, in the Roman Iron Age, around 1,500 years ago. In many cases, even the foundations of timber-built roundhouses over 2,000 years old can still be seen as shallow trenches in the turf. What did hillforts look like when they were first built? Why were they built? What was life like for their inhabitants? This book - aimed primarily at walkers and other visitors to the National Park - presents the results of a key component of Northumberland National Park Authority's Discovering our Hillfort Heritage project; detailed and extensive archaeological landscape surveys carried out by English Heritage. Like the best detective work, these investigations have combined the precision of the microscope with and appreciation of the big picture. The authors - all Archaeological Investigators with English Heritage - have, collectively, spent nearly a century exploring England's historic sites on foot.