Dorset is one of the best studied regions of Iron Age Britain. The excavations undertaken at the hillforts of Maiden Castle and Hod Hill are on a scale surpassed only by Danebury in Hampshire. As Dave Stewart and Miles Russell so aptly demonstrate, however, we have barely scratched the surface (in the most literal sense). Hillforts and the Durotriges is an engaging and thought-provoking account of Stewart's impressive attempts to undertake a geophysical study of the 21 Iron Age Dorset hillforts. This is a book which will appeal to both those already familiar with Iron Age Dorset and readers who arrive fresh to the area. Ch. 1 provides a succinct introduction to the Durotriges Project, and the material culture of the eponymous Late Iron Age people. Ch. 2 then moves to discussing the much debated question ‘what is a hillfort?’, before moving on to describing the standard narrative of the structural evolution of hillforts in this region. It is here that the reader is first introduced to a major argument of the book: a desire to move away from the dramatic interpretations proposed by Richmond and Wheeler in which these sites were the foci of resistance to Rome in the first century a.d.

In ch. 3, Gale gives an excellent overview of the history of hillfort investigation in Dorset. This leads into ch. 4, where Stewart delivers the core of the book, describing and discussing his geophysical work. Ch. 4 is a fine gazetteer in its own right, giving location, bibliographic references, photographs and site plans for each hillfort. To these are added the results of the magnetometry scans and discussion of their potential implications. Ch. 5 then weaves the results into a coherent image of hillfort use in Dorset, considering the placement of hillforts in the landscape, their proximity to water sources, internal architecture, and what became of them in the centuries (and millennia) after the Iron Age. Russell provides a concluding discussion in ch. 6, returning to the earlier mentioned critique of Richmond and Wheeler's militaristic interpretation of Hod Hill, Maiden Castle and other hillforts. In considering Stewart's findings, and by critically reviewing the evidence from Maiden Castle, the Spettisbury Rings and Hod Hill, Russell makes a convincing case for moving away from the idea that such sites were the foci of Durotrigian resistance in the first century a.d. He takes the argument one step further, proposing that the three classes of material culture considered to be markers of Durotrigian ethnicity, namely coinage, black burnished ware and burial rites, post-date the abandonment of many of these hillforts. As such, Dorset hillforts should not be viewed as being distinctive Durotrigian settlements in the first century b.c., but rather accord with the pattern of hillfort use and abandonment observed elsewhere, notably in Wessex.

There is little to criticise in this work. It is lavishly illustrated, with numerous maps, site plans and photographs. The only images which do not do this work justice are photographs of material from the Spettisbury Rings derived from the British Museum archives. Other areas which I found less convincing include the emphasis on coinage as indicating the extent of the Durotrigian community, rather than burial rites (ch. 1), and the idea that Hod Hill may have been a tribal capital, despite it being somewhat peripheral to the rest of the Durotrigian zone (although again this is placing emphasis on the distribution of burial rites, and to a lesser extent ceramic forms). These points aside, Hillforts and the Durotriges represents a vital contribution to the study of Iron Age Dorset, and Britain as a whole.