Hillforts in Scotland

After Roman occupation in the early Middle Ages some hillforts were reoccupied and petty kingdoms were often ruled from smaller nucleated forts using defensible natural features, as at Edinburgh and Dunbarton.

The first major study of Scottish hillforts was undertaken by General William Roy and published as The Military Antiquities of the Romans in Britain in 1793.

[1] George Chalmers' (1742–1825) first volume of Caledonia (1807) contained an arbitrary list of forts, but recognised that defences at Burnswark were not just in anticipation of Roman invasion, but to defend against native threats.

[1] The twentieth century saw the expansion in archaeological investigations for many sites, which were used to establish a chronology of the forts that would allow them to be fitted into a "defensive sequence" of invasion and occupation.

It was traditionally assumed that they were primarily defensive in nature, but in the late twentieth century this view began to be questioned and social, ritual and religious functions were emphasised.

[9] Traprain Law in East Lothian, had a 20-acre enclosure, sectioned in two places west of the summit, made up of a coursed, stone wall with a rubble core.

This might have been because of the threat posed by Roman incursions, which meant that concentrations of military and political force were vulnerable to a planned attack and siege.

Reconstructions have indicated the difficulty of deliberately firing timbers in this way, particularly in the prevailing climatic conditions in Scotland, and it is more likely that this was done as part of a process of fort destruction, either after conquest or when abandoned by the inhabitants.

[2] Extensive studies of such a fort at Finavon Hill near Forfar in Angus, suggest dates for the destruction of the site in either the last two centuries BC, or the mid-first millennium AD.

According to archaeologist Leslie Alcock, warfare was perhaps the "principal social activity in Early Historic northern Britain", playing a major part in "contemporary prose and poetry", and for this reason hill forts of this period have been commonly thought of as defensive structures designed to repel attack.

[18] The northern British peoples utilised different forms of fort and the determining factors in construction were local terrain, building materials, and politico-military needs.