By Michael Soane
Danebury is situated in Hampshire in southern England, and is the site of an Iron Age hill fort. According to the Lock (2003) the main of occupation at Danebury was between the seventh and sixth centuries BC up until the first century AD. The hilltop itself encompassed 12.8 hectares of land, or 31.6 acres, whilst a further 5 hectares of land were within the ramparts of the fort (Hirst, 2015). This area around the fort stayed constant through much of the expansion in population at the fort; why is still debated today. The history of the site starts in the sixth century BC in which the first rampart is built with a ditch dug around it and building commences on the southeast and western entrances, which would not change position in the 700 years of the fort’s occupation (Hirst, 2015). In the fourth century, extensive work was done on the ramparts making them steeper and larger possibly adding more wooden walls. This was likely caused by an increase in the population at the site who would have needed protection from the violence that was evidently part of the everyday lives of those inhabiting Iron Age England. The gates at Danebury were burned down twice in its history (Wileman, 2014), the eastern entrance being destroyed leading up to the first century BC, as evidenced by substantial amounts of charcoal found at the entrance. This would coincide with the numerous arrowheads discovered on the site as well as a skeleton of a man buried at the site who appears to have died from an arrow wound. This apparent warfare continued until the site was eventually abandoned in the first century BC (Lock 2003), most likely due to the Roman invasion of Britain in the same century in which existing forts were destroyed and Roman fortified towns were constructed.
Danebury Hill Fort (archaeology.about.com)
Excavations at the site were undertaken from 1969 directed by Professor Barry Cunliffe of the University of Oxford and ended in 1988 (Lock 2003), the dataset of which was so substantial that it necessitated the first use of computers to record an excavation and was therefore the first project to have been computerised in the 1980s (Lock 2003). Phase plans were also drawn up alongside the computerised data. Amongst the numerous bronze and iron artefacts found at the site (Hirst, 2015) over 10,000 postholes were excavated which made up the some 500 rectangular buildings along with 73 circular structures (Lock 2003), which are believed to have been a mixture of roundhouses and storage buildings. Most of these buildings were discovered in a pattern which would suggest they were situated on a main road through the fort that connected the two entrances of the hilltop, as suggested by the excavations done by Prof. Cunliffe (Lock 2003). The excavations done by Cunliffe on the south-eastern gateway showed a range of alterations made to the gateway over phases of the forts occupation. Amongst the finds excavated from the site 158,000 sherds of pottery and 241,000 animal bones were collected (Lock 2003). The amount of pottery found allowed a typology to be constructed and along with over 70 radiocarbon dates (Lock 2003) a time frame for the site could be established. What was discovered was that the amount of artefacts increased over time up until the abandoning of the site. This has been interpreted as evidence for the growth in population at the site as well as an increased dependency on animals and cereals, due to more storage pits being dug and more animal bones being deposited in some of these pits. Along with the remains of animals, a large quantity of floral remains were found which included a type of wheat common in the area as well as a significant amount of barley (Hirst, 2015). Along with some lesser known varieties of cereals, the amount of crops stored at Danebury has led to the theory put forward by Lightfoot and Stevens (2012) that Danebury was a collection and redistribution centre. This would also explain the amount of domesticated animal remains found at the site including; cattle, sheep, horses, goats and other native wildlife. Amongst these remains there was a large portion of corvid remains – ravens and crows (Hirst, 2015), which was common in the periods of the first centuries BC and AD. These were not food so much as deliberately buried for ritualistic purposes, as put forward by Serjeanston and Morris (2011). Although excavations of the site ended almost 30 years ago research has continued at the site, specifically on the organic remains uncovered there. In 2005 a study was conducted on the pottery sherds found at Danebury and it was revealed that a number of these pots would seem to have been containers used to store milk (Hirst, 2015) rather than the traditional ceramics found at Iron Age sites that were more like saucepans used for cooking. Further study indicated that 20% of the animals at Danebury were cattle (Hirst, 2015) and the ratio of female to male cattle, 65:14 overall, points to the strong possibility of dairy farming occurring at Danebury.
Aerial view of Danebury (Copyright Hampshire County Council)
Alongside this newer evidence and Lightfoot and Stevens work on the fauna at the site (Lightfoot and Stevens, 2012), it would seem to point to the most accepted current interpretation of the site in that it was a redistribution centre for a large area in Hampshire. This is far different from the initial interpretation of Danebury in that it was presumed to have been a primarily military fort, used to launch raiding parties and used as protection from revenge attacks. The presence of defences is clearly prevalent at Danebury as today nothing remains of the site apart from the surrounding ditches and the soil ramparts themselves (Hirst, 2015).
Bibliography
Hirst, K.K. (2015). Danebury – Iron Age Hillfort in the United Kingdom. Available online http://archaeology.about.com/od/dterms/g/danebury.htm [Accessed 08/11/15]
Lightfoot, E. & Stevens, R.E. (2012). Stable isotope investigations of charred barley (Hordeum Vulgare) and wheat (Triticum Spelta) grains from Danebury Hillfort: Implications for paleodietary reconstructions. Journal of Archaeological Science, 39(3), 656-662.
Lock, G (2003) The Danebury Excavations Digital Archive. Available online http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archives/view/danebury_var_2003/ [Accessed 06/11/15]
Serjeantson, D. & Morris, J (2011). Ravens and Crows in Iron Age and Roman Britain. Oxford Journal of Archaeology, 30(1), 85-107.
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