![The ditch and bank at Roddenbury Hillfort](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/The_ditch_and_bank_at_Roddenbury_Hillfort.jpg)
Roddenbury Hillfort is a
univallate
A hillfort is a type of earthwork used as a fortified refuge or defended settlement, located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typically European and of the Bronze Age or Iron Age. Some were used in the post-Roma ...
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age ( Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age ( Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostl ...
hillfort
A hillfort is a type of earthwork used as a fortified refuge or defended settlement, located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typically European and of the Bronze Age or Iron Age. Some were used in the post-Roma ...
in the parish of
Selwood, Somerset
Selwood used to be a village but is now part of the suburbs of Frome. It is a civil parish in the Mendip district of Somerset, England. The parish includes the villages of East and West Woodlands, Rodden and the hamlets of Alder Row and Blatchb ...
, England. It is a
Scheduled Monument
In the United Kingdom, a scheduled monument is a nationally important archaeological site or historic building, given protection against unauthorised change.
The various pieces of legislation that legally protect heritage assets from damage and d ...
and it was on the
Heritage at Risk Register
An annual ''Heritage at Risk Register'' is published by Historic England. The survey is used by national and local government, a wide range of individuals and heritage groups to establish the extent of risk and to help assess priorities for acti ...
in 2011. In 2012 it was announced that it was to undergo major repairs following damage by off road biking. It is close to the later
Hales Castle.
The site covers . It some places the protective bank has been destroyed. In others it remains up to high and has a ditch below it.
Background
Hillforts developed in the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age, roughly the start of the
first millennium BC. The reason for their emergence in Britain, and their purpose, has been a subject of debate. It has been argued that they could have been military sites constructed in response to invasion from continental Europe, sites built by invaders, or a military reaction to social tensions caused by an increasing population and consequent pressure on agriculture. The dominant view since the 1960s has been that the increasing use of iron led to social changes in Britain. Deposits of
iron ore were located in different places to the
tin
Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn (from la, stannum) and atomic number 50. Tin is a silvery-coloured metal.
Tin is soft enough to be cut with little force and a bar of tin can be bent by hand with little effort. When bent, t ...
and
copper ore
Following is a list of minerals that serve as copper ores in the copper mining
Copper extraction refers to the methods used to obtain copper from its ores. The conversion of copper consists of a series of physical and electrochemical proces ...
necessary to make bronze, and as a result trading patterns shifted and the old elites lost their economic and social status. Power passed into the hands of a new group of people. Archaeologist
Barry Cunliffe believes that population increase still played a role and has stated "
he fortsprovided defensive possibilities for the community at those times when the stress
f an increasing populationburst out into open warfare. But I wouldn't see them as having been built because there was a state of war. 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".
See also
*
List of hill forts and ancient settlements in Somerset
Somerset is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is a rural county of rolling hills, such as the Mendip Hills, Quantock Hills and Exmoor National Park, and large flat expanses of land including the Somerset Levels. Modern man came to w ...
References
{{reflist
History of Somerset
Hill forts in Somerset
Iron Age sites in Somerset
Scheduled monuments in Mendip District