The camp overlooks Burrington Combe, where there have been archaeological discoveries of cemeteries, demonstrating a very long human occupation of the area.

[5][6] By 2022, the interpretation panel on site suggested that the purpose of the earthworks – whether to provide a refuge, to contain/protect a settlement or simply to act as a pen for livestock – was unknown.

Hill forts developed in the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age, roughly the start of the first millennium BC.

[8] Archaeologist Barry Cunliffe believes that population increase still played a role and has stated "[the forts] provided defensive possibilities for the community at those times when the stress [of an increasing population] burst out into open warfare.

They would be functional as defensive strongholds when there were tensions and undoubtedly some of them were attacked and destroyed, but this was not the only, or even the most significant, factor in their construction".