Inside Britain’s biggest Iron Age fortress

A major excavation at Britain's biggest Iron Age hill-fort has begun in Somerset, in the hope that it will at last enable historians to explain the meaning and purpose of the enigmatic site. The excavation is being carried out by a joint team from the School of History, Archaeology and Religion and researchers from Cambridge University. The team will spend three seasons digging a hectare of Ham Hill's interior to try to understand more about its layout and use Stretching across a vast area measuring more than 80 hectares, Ham Hill dominates the landscape a few miles west of Yeovil. It is by far and away the largest hill-fort in the country, dwarfing better-known sites from the same period such as Maiden Castle, in Dorset, or Danebury in Hampshire. Its sheer scale, however, also presents an historical puzzle. No Iron Age society could possibly have mustered enough people to defend such a huge site. Yet while it is therefore unlikely that Ham Hill functioned as a serviceable fort, nobody has to date been able to explain what it was used for.