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Stantonbury Camp is the site of an
The hillfort, which is at the top of an isolated outcrop of Oolitic Limestone, close to the
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 mostly appl ...
hill fort
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 ...
near Stanton Prior
Stanton Prior is a small village within the civil parish of Marksbury, set in Duchy of Cornwall countryside between Newton St Loe and Marksbury, west from the UK city of Bath, Somerset.
Stanton Prior derives its name from the Old English 'S ...
within the parish of Marksbury
Marksbury is a small village and civil parish on the eastern edge of the affluent Chew Valley in Somerset, about from Keynsham and from Bath on the A39 where it meets the A368. The parish, which includes the villages of Hunstrete and Stant ...
in Somerset
( en, All The People of Somerset)
, locator_map =
, coordinates =
, region = South West England
, established_date = Ancient
, established_by =
, preceded_by =
, origin =
, lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset
, lord_ ...
, England. It is a Scheduled Ancient 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 ...
.
Background
Hill forts 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 and copper ore 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. ArchaeologistBarry Cunliffe
Sir Barrington Windsor Cunliffe, (born 10 December 1939), known as Barry Cunliffe, is a British archaeologist and academic. He was Professor of European Archaeology at the University of Oxford from 1972 to 2007. Since 2007, he has been an Emeri ...
believes that population increase still played a role and has stated "he forts
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (pronoun), an English pronoun
* He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ
* He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets
* He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...
provided defensive possibilities for the community at those times when the stress f an increasing population
F, or f, is the sixth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''ef'' (pronounced ), and the plural is ''efs''.
Hist ...
burst 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".
Description
The hillfort, which is at the top of an isolated outcrop of Oolitic Limestone, close to the A39 road
The A39 is an A road in south west England. It runs south-west from Bath in Somerset through Wells, Glastonbury, Street and Bridgwater. It then follows the north coast of Somerset, Devon and Cornwall through Williton, Minehead, Porlock, Lynm ...
is on the route of the Wansdyke.
Several iron agricultural implements from the site, including blades of sickles or pruning hooks and the iron tip from an ard, now reside in the collection of the British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
.
The site is on the English Heritage
English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses.
The charity states that i ...
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 actio ...
as being in danger of deterioration because of extensive animal burrowing.
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 wh ...
References
{{reflist Hill forts in Somerset Scheduled monuments in Bath and North East Somerset Structures on the Heritage at Risk register in Somerset