The Fortified Edge of Europe (800–500 BC)

Comments · 36

• RU

  @Ruazzzer67 · 3 months ago · pinned

  These videos are very well done - absolutely pleasure to watch

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• ER

  @EricAnderson-x9f · 2 months ago

  I love where this is going. Brilliant

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• SA

  @SarahTheRebelOfficial · 2 months ago

  In all the years I have enjoyed learning history, I have never seen the pattern of these settlements mapped out like this. Thank you!

• JH

  @jhonfisher8910 · 3 months ago

  Defense is never excessive. Prevention is better than cure.

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• RV

  @rvaviima · 2 months ago

  I love the huge number of picture examples from sites I've never heard about. Everyone knows Athens and Rome, but there are dozens of important and pictoresque archeological sites around Europe that don't get the attention they deserve.

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• PR

  @prototropo · 3 months ago

  I’m especially fascinated by your these Atlantic coastal communities, which might have been where the first, or oldest Europeans settled. I think my ancestry starts there.

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• LE

  @LewisPulsipher · 3 months ago

  Didn't these hill forts exist all over Britain and France and Iberia? That is, not just along the coast.

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• DA

  @dancefeast · 3 months ago

  Forts indeed existed all over Britain and France, and indeed as far east as 2,500 miles east of Moscow. A promontory saved work because it needed a wall only across the neck, but inland locations as well would sometimes have natural cliffs, rivers, or lakes which saved some of the work of surrounding the fort with walls. There was nothing &nbsp;unique about the Atlantic coast of Europe as far as hilllforts are concerned.<br><br>This video considers the walls of the forts to be for defense. I agree, indeed it seems obvious they are for defense. &nbsp;But some scholars say that there is no evidence of fighting, such as dropped weapons or skeletons with bashed in skulls in the ditch below the walls. To understand battle at a hillfort, it is helpful to consider the fort of Alesia in France, which was taken by Julius Caesar.. Walls don&apos;t keep out attackers by themselves, they act as force multipliers, so the attackers must outnumber the defenders by some ratio (5 to 1 in modern war) in order to prevail. That is the defenders&apos; advantage. The attackers advantage is that each set of defenders is defending their own fort, while the raiding party can concentrate all their force on one fort. Thus the raiding party can have the 5 to 1 numerical advantage they need. The attacker will win this battle, but not quickly -- in effect they besiege the fort. In the time the siege takes, the warriors of a neighboring hillfort, if they are allies, can come to the aid of the attacked fort. As more and more allies arrive, they equal and then surpass the raiding party in numbers. The attackers are trapped between the defenders within the fort (who sally forth to fight, but can duck back inside as needed), and the arriving allies. At the fort of Alesia, Caesar built a double wall around the fort -- the inner wall served to keep the Gauls withing the fort in, while the outer wall served to keep the arriving allies out. Caesar won that battle. It has been noted, and was mentioned in this video, that each hillfort usually had another hillfort within view. Perhaps they used beacons, or smoke signals, to send the request for aid. &nbsp;Against the mighty Roman army, the Gauls had no choice to make Britain their fort, from which they could sally forth across the channel. Caesar tried to take Britain, but failed. Based on this understanding of how hillfort walls functioned to defend the fort, we do not expect to find a lot of skeletons in the ditch below the walls. The decisive battle would take place some distance outside the fort, between the defenders, the attackers, and the arriving allies. It would be suicidal for the attackers to have that battle take place under the shadow of the fort&apos;s walls.

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• MA

  @mariaBEE-o9k2q · 3 weeks ago

  Very good

• CD

  @cdtv3602 · 3 months ago

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tw8VDseSnfY&amp;t=260">4:20</a> SPOTTED =&gt; horse 🐴

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• MI

  @missopowers · 3 months ago

  Dun Aenghasa on Inis Mor fits the description also.

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• JO

  @JoesWebPresence · 3 months ago

  You could have continued around the UK, with Dumbarton and Dunottar fitting the bill neatly. Tintagel too. The Tay and Boyne valleys have similar, but much older structures, with timelines as far back as 6,000BC. Warren field near Crathes castle in Aberdeenshire has the oldest calendar known to man, with 13 pits dug to track the phases of the moon, which show continuous calibration and repair from 8,000BC to 4,000BC. This calendar focused on the phases of the moon, and it was soon realised that it could accurately predict the tides. Most stone circles can be used for this purpose, and many now think they may have been important assets for sea faring cultures to create and maintain, long before they were important for agriculture. There is no evidence for example, that agriculture had reached Aberdeenshire when these calendar pits were active.<br>Can you think of any other structure on Earth which was in continuous use, for it&apos;s original purpose, for four thousand years? That is no disperate band of huter gatherers clinging on to the edge of Europe. That is a cultural continuity which is simply unknown to us in our present age.

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