Chronology
They are most common during later periods:
- Urnfield culture and Atlantic Bronze Age (c. 1300 BC – 750 BC) Bronze Age
- Hallstatt culture (c. 1200 BC – 500 BC) late Bronze Age to early Iron Age
- La Tene culture (c. 600 BC – 50 AD) late Iron Age
Prehistoric Europe saw a growing population. It has been estimated that in about 5,000 BC during the Neolithic between 2 million and 5 million lived in Europe; in the Late Iron Age it had an estimated population of around 15 to 30 million. Outside Greece and Italy, which were more densely populated, the vast majority of settlements in the Iron Age were small, with perhaps no more than 50 inhabitants. Hill forts were the exception, and were the home of up to 1,000 people. With the emergence of oppida in the Late Iron Age, settlements could reach as large as 10,000 inhabitants. As the population increased so did the complexity of prehistoric societies. Around 1100 BC hill forts emerged and in the following centuries spread through Europe. They served a range of purposes and were variously tribal centres, defended places, foci of ritual activity, and places of production.
During the Hallstatt C period, hill forts became the dominant settlement type in the west of Hungary. Julius Caesar described the large late Iron Age hill forts he encountered during his campaigns in Gaul as oppida. By this time the larger ones had become more like cities than fortresses and many were assimilated as Roman towns.
Hill forts were frequently occupied by conquering armies, but on other occasions the forts were destroyed, the local people forcibly evicted, and the forts left derelict. For example, Solsbury Hill was sacked and deserted during the Belgic invasions of southern Britain in the 1st century BC. Abandoned forts were sometimes reoccupied and refortified under renewed threat of foreign invasion, such as the Dukes' Wars in Lithuania, and the successive invasions of Britain by Romans, Saxons and Vikings.
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