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The majority of known Iron Age settlements in
Somerset, as in the rest of southern Britain, are the hill-forts, which remain
conspicuous, though there were probably others, similar to the farmstead at
Little Woodbury in Wiltshire, which have remained undetected. Hill-forts
consist of one or more banks and ditches on high ground, usually a prominent
hill crest. There is a considerable variety of earthworks of this type from
the univallate or single bank and ditch enclosures, probably used in the early
Iron Age by pastoral farmers for their cattle, to the huge multivallate
fortresses of Ham Hill and South Cadbury, enclosing many acres and known to
the Romans as oppida or towns. The tremendous communal effort needed to
construct these huge fortifications shows how tribal organisation had
developed and how much the need for defence dominated the lives of these
people.
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Somerset was never a separate tribal area but was
divided among three tribes whose principal territories were in neighbouring
counties. The Dumnonii of Devon and Cornwall penetrated into west Somerset,
probably as far as the river Parrett; the Durotriges of Dorset occupied most
of the south and east of Somerset; the Dobunni of Gloucestershire occupied
north Somerset probably as far as the Mendip Hills, Some idea of the influence
and area of occupation of these tribes in Somerset is derived from coins found
in various parts of the county, as well as from the indications of trade from
the Lake Villages. The Dumnonii, for the most part, appear to have been a
pastoral people using cattle or unworked metal-tin and copper for exchange
by barter, but both the Dobunni and the Durotriges minted their own coins.
There were no clear-cut boundaries, but the division of Somerset into these
three spheres of tribal influence continued into the period of the Roman
occupation.
The last of the Celtic immigrants were the
Belgae who came into south-east Britain from the north of France about 150
B.C. and into Dorset and Hampshire about 100 B.C. They were an ambitious and
aggressive people and their arrival led to an increase in tribal warfare. It
seems probable that the multivallate forts were developed in response to the
threat of the Belgic expansion towards the west, but more purely local
rivalries and improved techniques of warfare, especially the use of slings,
also led to the new constructions. The inner rampart dominated the defences.
The close-set, deep ditches with steep slopes on the outer banks were built as
obstacles giving no foothold to the attackers as they came within the range of
sling stones from above. The need for such fortifications is shown by the
destruction of the Lake Villages at some time between Caesar's invasion
attempts in 55 and 54 B.C. and the Claudian conquest in AD. 43, when the
Dobunni were being attacked by the raiding Belgae. |
Map of Iron Age hill forts and settlements.