All of our lectures are live streamed and are open to anyone to join us online, Fellows and Non-Fellows.
To view any of our past lectures please visit our YouTube channel.
To view any of our past lectures please visit our YouTube channel.
The (re)occupation of hillforts was a distinctive feature of post-Roman Europe (5th-7th century AD). In western and northern Britain hillforts are interpreted as power centres associated with militarised elites, but research has focused narrowly upon sites, with less consideration of landscape context. Consequently, we have little understanding of the factors that influenced the siting of hillforts and how this facilitated elite power. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) provide opportunities for landscape research, but are constrained by limitations of source data and the difficulty of defining appropriate parameters for analysis. In this lecture I will present a new methodology that combines data processing and analytical functions afforded by GIS with techniques and principles drawn from ‘traditional’ landscape archaeology. The results of a pilot study focused on Dinas Powys suggest that the strategic siting of this hillfort facilitated control over the landscape and has wider implications for our understanding of patterns of power in post-Roman Britain.