- Fortifications and Defence -
Figure 5.1 Block diagram illustrating the multiple built faces of the mUTUS duplex con-
struction, based on Worlebury, Somerset, England. (Drawn by Gordon Thomas after
Hogg, 1975.)
constructed during the second half of the first millennium Be (Armit 1990). In these
elaborate circular and near-circular towers, superimposed lintelled galleries, linking
internal and external wall-faces, enabled heights in excess of 10 m to be attained (see
MacKie, Chapter 34). In these, the monumental walls served to support the roof over
the domestic living space, to signal their inhabitants' importance (in a very visible
way in largely treeless landscapes) and to dissuade attack. A less spectacular version
of such wholly roofed, heavy-walled enclosures may be represented by circular duns
and related structures in Atlantic Britain. Such sites, in which individual walls
arguably served both domestic and defensive ends, are best considered as elaborated
versions of individual homesteads.
Many excavated examples of defences demonstrate heavy use of wood (Cunliffe
1991 for Britain; Biichsenschiitz and Ralston 1981; Ralston 1981, 1992) as a structural
component. Whilst characteristic of many fortifications in Celtic-speaking areas, this
trait is in fact represented more widely both in space and in time in Europe. The
earliest examples are again neolithic: as at Hambledon Hill, in south-western
England (Mercer 1980) and Moulins-sur-Cephons in Berry, central France, the latter