Hillforts in Northern Britain 

Thanks for your comment and yes, that's a fair point. In looking for 'spoil' firstly the scree that skirts the upper level of the hill is not naturally occurring. Its the remains of a significant stone rampart that encircled the top platform. Its possible that any stone quarried out from an irregular summit to create a flat level for the top platform was reused the build the wall. Earth that was dug out to level the mound would likely have been redistributed around the top of the hill to level off the space and extend the platform as much as possible. The 'Northern Picts' team at the University of Aberdeen had a short digging season on the Eildon Hills this summer - hopefully once they publish their findings we will have a firmer answer.

Not yet, but I'll check it out. Thanks!

To my knowledge, in Northern Britain, the Romans didn't really make use of the native hillforts. The tower on Eildon Hill North is a bit of an exception. As you say, they often tend to be strategically positioned, but the Romans preferred to build their own camps nearby instead - sometimes right on the doorstep of a hillfort. The Romans built a uniform layout of hillfort which was replicated in plan all across the empire - the idea was that a Syrian auxiliary posted to the frontier up in Northern Britain could still fall out of his tent in the pitch black in the middle of the night if the alarm was sounded and know exactly where to go. They couldn't rely on this training if they took on organically shaped hillforts that followed the form of the landscape. The Romans were also a field army - they weren't organised to fight defensive battles behind walls. Their commanders would much rather march out and fight their enemy on the field rather than cower behind walls, so the concept of a hillfort as a place of defence would be a bit lost on them. The other purposes - as tribal centres, centres of ritual or prestige were also lost on the Romans, which is why they preferred to control strategic routes from the valley floor rather than a draughty hilltop. Hope this helps!

It's worth pointing out that the Romans and natives had very different requirements for their forts. The natives probably wanted an easily defensible (maybe multi purpose) location which would be manned by a relatively small number of people (maybe an extended family group that represented the aristocratic class). The Romans needed a defensible camp to house and supply a massive standing army, something which simply didn't exist in the Celtic world. With a large army you don't need the added benefit of an inaccessible hilltop for defence, because your stength is based on your numbers. However, your weakness is the requirement for constant supply of food / water and the organisational logistics involved. In which case an inaccessible location is a disadvantage.

@@cowalhistory7598 Better to have forts next to roads which were essentially military roads than forts in out of the way places that make it harder to get onto the road.

I think the Romans preferred offense to defense. They built forts that they could counterattack from, rather than forts that could withstand a siege.

@The Knave I hear you! Many hillforts could have served some form of defensive function, e.g the White Caterhuns up in Angus. As a place of refuge, to hold up for a couple of days if an enemy tribes were raiding through the valley then yes, they may fit that purpose. Many examples however have no well or spring and would require potted water to be brought up the hill. Backbreaking labour on the scale required to water a tribe or settlement wouldn't be sustainable to stock up for a long wait. Being stuck up on a hilltop without water in the face of a determined enemy could only result in disaster. Some hillforts are all but indefensible, such as Chesters in Lothian, which has a half dozen rows of ramparts when viewed from the valley floor - making it look imposing from below - but the internals of the upper enclosure are completely overlooked by the neighbouring and higher ridge, making it a deathtrap for potential defenders. The late pre-Roman Iron Age people of Northern Britain were not all peaceful egalitarians either in my opinion, I agree with you there. Warfare probably mirrored the pattern of the Early Medieval period after the Romans withdrew however, consisting of semi-frequent cycles of raiding by warbands across territorial boundaries to pinch their neighbours' cattle as portable riches. Large scale orchestrated armies and 'wars' were much less likely. Perhaps more of a picture of tribal squabbles to and fro that would flare up when competition for resources was heightened or someone with a big ego came along who liked to wave their spear about. As for wild animals of the period, the dangerous predators would be wolves, wild boar and brown bears. Nothing that would attack a settlement for food unless desperate and not in enough numbers that a group of people couldn't organise and overcome without needing to shelter behind a rampart - roundhouses and fire would do! A fox will also steal your chickens if you lived in the valley floor or up on a walled hilltop. Having camped the night on top of White Caterhuns hillfort a couple of summers ago, I can also vouch that the soil is so thin up there that only thing growing is weeds and despair :p If you're lucky enough to live near a hillfort in Britain, best thing to do is to climb one and reckon it out for yourself. Would you want to stay up there for more than a couple of days? Thanks for your comments!

Glad you enjoy it!

@Minarchist 412 indeed - the video goes on to explore the different possible functions of hillforts. In some cases a defensive purpose may have been the reason for construction, but many are not viable defensive sites and their focus may have been on prestige, religious ritual or communal gathering places.

@@cowalhistory7598 totally agree.

Montium is Latin though and has no Brythonic meaning. Tre would have been closer to treb back then and town was more usually rendered as Dunon. The original name was written in Greek and then translated during the middle ages into Latin so transcription and translation errors are possible but montium if not Latin and actually a Brythonic derived word wouldn't mean mountain(s).

@@damionkeeling3103 Skene suggests it was something like Tref Mynydd and tentatively identifies Burnswark Hill. I guess in Brythonic that would have been more like Treb-Monid. The monid could have easily been Latinised to montium.

@@jamescarruthers1967 The first part is unlikely to become Tri though given the scribes would be familiar with the river Trebia in Italy which would count against a spelling change from treb to tri as the syllable would be known to them and not 'corrected' to tri(um). The problem is that the actual borders of these tribal groups are not known so the Selgovae might extend all the way to the Eildon Hills or the original Trimontium was actually further west and the Selgovae were concentrated in Dumfriesshire, there's really no way to tell which is correct. Archaeology might pick up enough regional differences to establish some rough outlines one day.

@@damionkeeling3103 I don't see the problem with treb becoming tri. Are the names not all thought to be quite heavily corrupted? Could the b not have been swallowed in the original pronunciation, especially if it was combined with the following m? Either way it was originally recorded by a foreign traveler who may not have been able to discern it.

@@jamescarruthers1967 I could see that happening in speech but I'm assuming Ptolemy is using a standard Roman or Greek spelling for the towns rather than conversing with locals. The Romans had conquered that part of Britain 70 years before Ptolemy is thought to have written his book so it's reasonable to assume he was using Roman documents so any errors would be later scribal ones. Another thing I wonder about is the form of the name. Trev Mynydd is how placenames are written in the early middle ages but the earlier placenames have the type of place last rather than first - Camulodunon instead of Dunadd. When did this change?