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Four Spanish Hill-Forts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

A. H. A. Hogg
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Extract

It has long been recognized that during the latter part of the 1st millennium B.C., as in other periods, there was contact between Spain and western Britain, and it has been claimed that there are structural resemblances between hill-forts in those areas. But although an excellent account of the Iron Age in northern Spain has been available for some time to English readers, it deals almost exclusively with the portable relics, and gives very little information about the forts themselves. Moreover, the original publications which deal with these remains are very scarce in Britain. It therefore seems worth while to give some account of four which the writer was able to visit during 1954. They were selected primarily because their defences incorporated chevaux-de-frise, which seem generally to be rare outside Spain, but which occur on two sites in Wales, and elsewhere in Britain.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 31 , Issue 121 , March 1957 , pp. 25 - 32
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1957

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References

1 E. T. Leeds, Archaeologia, vol. 76 (1926–7), pp. 227–235.

2 P. Bosch-Gimpera, ‘Two Celtic Waves in Spain’. Sir John Rhys Memorial Lecture, British Academy, 1939. (Proc. Brit. Acad, XXVI.)

3 The best collection of publications appears to be in the Ashmolean library in Oxford.

4 W. J. Hemp, ‘Three Hill Forts in Eastern Spain’. ANTIQUITY, III (1929), p. 188.

5 J. Cabré, Acròpoli ... del Monte Bernorio, Arte Español, 1920. For air-photograph see J. Martinez Santa-Olalla, Esquema Paletnologico de la Peninsula Hispánica (Madrid, 1928), pl. LIII.

6 S. Gonzalez Garcia-Paz, Bol. Univ. Santiago. 1934.

7 Coaña and Pendia: Archivo Español de Arqueologia, 1942, pp. 216, 288; Troña: Memorias de la Junta sup. de Excavaciones, 115, 1950; Sabroso: see réf. 8 below.

8 M. Cardozo, Citânia e Sabroso, 2nd éd., Guimarães, 1938.

9 A similar association, which is not common in Britain, occurs in Anglesey and Caernarvonshire (see R.C.A.M. Inventories passim). To judge from published accounts, constructional details which are characteristic of the Spanish sites also appear, for example, at the 3rd-4th century A.D. hut group at Din Lligwy. But until both areas have been examined by an archaeologist with this possibility in mind, the suggestion that there was a transfer of population organized by the Romans must remain no more than a hypothesis.

10 See, for example, F. Maciñeira Pardo de Lama, Bol. Acad. Gallega, Año XXX, no. 259.

11 B. Taracena Aguirre, Soria (Carta Arq. de España), Madrid, 1941. E.g. Ocenilla, p. 122.

12 M. Cardozo, Archivo Español de Arqueologia, XX (1947), p. 262.

13 Aguirre, Soria, p. 166.

14 Aguirre, Soria, p. 85. The fort is known locally as Castillejo, not Castillo as stated in this reference.

15 J .Cabré Agüitó, Mem. de lajunta sup. de Excavationes y Antiguedade, 110 (Madrid, 1929–30). Cemetery: no. 120 (1932). The drawn scale on the general plan seems, from comparison with the detail plans, to represent 100 m., not 50 m. as there shown.

16 J. Cabré Aguiló, Acta Arqueológica Hispánica, V (Madrid, 1950). The plan drawn to a scale of 1/2500 by M. Molinero has been reproduced there to a scale of about 1/5100; it has no drawn scale.

17 The site at Mongo described by Hemp (ANTIQUITY, III, pp. 191–3) seems to have rather similar bastions.

18 As described by Bosch-Gimpera, ‘Two Celtic Waves’ p. 62.

19 Ibid., p. 63.

20 R. A. S. Macalister, Ireland in Pre-Celtic Times, pp. 269, 275.

21 I am indebted to Mr R. W. Feachem for information concerning the Scottish sites. Kaimes Hill: Midlothian Inventory, no. 216; Barhullion: Wigtown Inventory, no. 7. The chevaux-de-frise recorded at Dreva are the remains of hut-circles.

22 W. Gardiner, Arch. Camb., 1932, pp. 144–50.

23 H. H. Hughes and W. Gardner, Arch. Camb., 1906, pp. 241–267; Caernarvonshire Inventory, 1, no. 315.

24 Arch. Camb., 1906, pp. 257–67.

25 Caesar used an elaborate defence of wooden spikes during the siege of Alesia in 52 B.C. (Bello Gallico, VII, 73; I am indebted to Mr C. E. Stevens for this reference). It could therefore be argued that the distribution of stone chevattx-de-frise is misleading, and that many wooden examples have disappeared; none seem to have been recorded, however, except in Roman works, and it is equally arguable that Caesar derived the idea from Spain.