The suffix -bury (from byrig, an Anglo-Saxon word meaning "fort" or "town") is frequently, but not exclusively, used to refer to hill-forts.

[14][15] Further information on the dig and hill fort can be found a short walk down the road on Somerset Heritage Panels which have been erected in the local pub The Camelot Inn.

[16] The earliest settlement on the site is represented by pits and post holes dated with Neolithic pottery and flints.

[19] Radical revisions of the Bronze Age archaeology on the lower slopes[20] resulted from discoveries during excavations and survey work by the South Cadbury Environs Project.

[22][23] A metal-working building and associated enclosure were discovered 2 km (1.2 mi) south east of the hillfort, roughly contemporary with the period of manufacture.

[31] Excavations were undertaken by local clergyman James Bennett in 1890 and Harold St George Gray in 1913, followed by major work led by archaeologist Leslie Alcock from 1966 to 1970.

[18] There is evidence that the fort was violently taken around AD 43 and that the defences were further slighted later in the first century after the construction of a Roman army barracks on the hilltop.

[34] Excavations of the southwest gate in 1968 and 1969 revealed evidence for one or more severe violent episodes associated with weaponry and destruction by fire.

[37] Michael Havinden states that it was the site of vigorous resistance by the Durotriges and Dobunni to the second Augusta Legion under the command of Vespasian.

[49][50] The site and the Great Hall are extensive, and the writer Geoffrey Ashe argued that it was the base for the Arthur of history.

[52] Militarily, the location makes sense as a place where refugees and the southwestern Brythons of Dumnonia could have defended themselves against attacks from the east.

[54] The recent work on the archaeology of the site and the surrounding area has been carried out by the South Cadbury Environs Project.

Since 1992 the project team, which included local volunteers South East Somerset Archaeological and Historical Society and the Yeovil Archaeology and Local History Society, have carried out geophysical surveys including gradiometry and electrical resistivity tomography,[55] ploughzone sampling,[56] test pits,[57] deeper excavations[58] and geographic information system (GIS) approaches.

[59] The project had input from academics and archaeologists from the universities of Bristol, Glasgow, Birmingham and Oxford, funded by the Leverhulme Trust and Arts and Humanities Research Council.