- Fortifications and Defence -
Figure 5.S Aerial photo of Tap o'Noth, Gordon District, Grampian Region, Scotland,
showing the gateless, oblong and heavily vitrified fort on the summit, and the external
stone bank, with platforms on the intervening slopes. (Copyright: Aberdeen Archaeological
Surveys.)
In the other main series, promontory forts, which occur in both inland and coastal
locations, the defences are normally at their most substantial on the side of easiest
approach. They may be slighter, or indeed absent, elsewhere: indeed the writer is
surprised by how few coastal promontory forts in exposed locations show signs of
enclosure at their seaward margins. The young, the elderly, the frail must have
been tethered to prevent them being blown off! Other topographic settings are
also employed, although less frequently: some ridges are barred by walls at both
accessible ends; river meanders and peninsulas jutting into lakes are employed; and
in some instances arcs of walling back onto cliffs (Forde-Johnston 1976; Audouze
and Bi.ichsenschi.itz 1992).
One subset of sites, attributable broadly to the last two centuries Be (La Tene lIb
and III or C2 and DI-2), includes numerous examples which depart from the
locational generalizations sketched above. In these, defensive lines career across slopes
(most spectacularly at Velem Sankt Vid in western Hungary), on occasion to enclose
the heads of watercourses (as at Mont Beuvray, Burgundy, France), and in other
examples to cross low-lying tracts between neighbouring enclosed summits (as at
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