No

Only one of the hillforts of southern Gwynedd has been submitted to a small excavation, and the forts in this study are quite forgotten in the larger British hillfort research. This thesis explores the forts’ possible uses through an analysis of their landscape setting, accessibility and view, architecture, internal features and archaeological setting. The result of the analysis show a variety of uses , for example related to occupation, trade, exchange or communication, agriculture and pastoralism, defence, religion and ritual. In addition, some larger patterns, connections and pairings of forts also come to light. Hopefully this study will lead to a heightened interest in, and future studies and excavations of the forts of southern Gwynedd.

Roundhouses are ubiquitous in prehistoric Britain, yet previous studies of these iconic features have tended to overlook their human occupants, focusing instead on their external morphology and structural engineering. Those studies which have attempted to move beyond functionalist frameworks, have often applied overarching and broad-scale cosmological models which, though re-orientating study towards social considerations, have likewise failed to shed light on the interaction between roundhouse and their inhabitants, particularly at a household level. This research reanalyses the Late Iron Age settlement at Broxmouth, East Lothian, using new theoretical approaches and advances in AMS dating to ask new questions of a 30 year old data-set. Biographical and materiality approaches, which draw heavily on relational analogy with the ethnographic record, have allowed for detailed reconstruction of the life-history of each structure, and important moments within these histories. Roundhouse replacement appears to have taken place on a roughly generational basis, as a means by which households renegotiated their social identities within the community. Structured deposition, and the materiality of the roundhouse fabric itself, appears to have played an important role in the communication of identity, where the retention of previous structural fabric, the deposition of curated items, and the referencing of former internal features, created physical and symbolic links with the past, and with the ancestors. As such, this study demonstrates that roundhouses were far more than mere dwellings, and were integral to the ways in which past societies rationalised the world around them.

This study about Norrland’s hillforts has been a way to understand and figure out how the hillforts has been used. By reading previously published literature around mostly Scandinavian hillforts and what they may have had for functions and dating, if the assumed previously functions in Norrland was right or if there could be more to them. In this study it shows that functions for hillforts is mostly assumed with none or a few archaeological evidence. The first assumed function of Norrlands hillfort as refuge has been criticized by authors from Norway and Finland because of the distance between district and hillfort. The assumption suggested that it would have been too difficult to flee from an enemy if a raid would be of essence, and with published literature, GIS-analysis, and 3D pictures this can hopefully be shown for the reader.

Roundhouses are ubiquitous in prehistoric Britain, yet previous studies of these iconic features have tended to overlook their human occupants, focusing instead on their external morphology and structural engineering. Those studies which have attempted to move beyond functionalist frameworks, have often applied overarching and broad-scale cosmological models which, though re-orientating study towards social considerations, have likewise failed to shed light on the interaction between roundhouse and their inhabitants, particularly at a household level. This research reanalyses the Late Iron Age settlement at Broxmouth, East Lothian, using new theoretical approaches and advances in AMS dating to ask new questions of a 30 year old data-set. Biographical and materiality approaches, which draw heavily on relational analogy with the ethnographic record, have allowed for detailed reconstruction of the life-history of each structure, and important moments within these histories. Roundhouse replacement appears to have taken place on a roughly generational basis, as a means by which households renegotiated their social identities within the community. Structured deposition, and the materiality of the roundhouse fabric itself, appears to have played an important role in the communication of identity, where the retention of previous structural fabric, the deposition of curated items, and the referencing of former internal features, created physical and symbolic links with the past, and with the ancestors. As such, this study demonstrates that roundhouses were far more than mere dwellings, and were integral to the ways in which past societies rationalised the world around them. / AHRC funding the affiliated Collaborative Doctoral Awards / The full text was made available at the end of the extended embargo, 31st March 2020.

No / We take a look at the revolutionary findings from the largest investigation of an Iron Age hillfort ever undertaken in Scotland, which shed new light on life on the edge of the Roman Empire.

The aim of this thesis is to analyze the early medieval pottery found at the hillfort Na Jánu acropolis. The pottery assemblage originates from trenchs S2/2000, S3/2003, S4/2003, S5/2003, S4/2001, S5/2001 end S16/2013. I analyzed functional, technological and decorative features of the pottery and, based on these results, created relative chronology of the entire sample.

The thesis presents the results of processing the excavation of the acropolis of Levý Hradec (district of Praha-západ). The excavation took place between 1940-1954 under the leadership of Ivan Borkovský (ARÚ ČSAV in Prague). The hillfort is known as the Early Medieval center, however it was notably settled during the prehistory as well. Unfortunately, these findings have not been processed yet. The main aim of this thesis was the identification of prehistoric cultures on the basis of pottery collection, assignment of the extent of settlement in particular cultures and effort to date the prehistoric phases of fortification on the basis of original documentation and the pottery findings. Moreover, there was the attempt to identificate the excavated objects in documentation and cross connect the pottery with documentation.

This thesis deals with the beginnings of the Prague Castle. The principal attention is mainly turned to a closer recognation of course of settlement in the original west forecastle, which means today's forecastles I, II and IV. In connection with this problem the principal goal of this thesis consists in processing of the research that Jan Frolík accomplished within the forecastle I and the forecastle IV in the building of today's so called Northern Wing in 1987. There were six trenches with features and habitation layers of the Early Middle Ages explored. These discovered archaeological sections were divided into horizons in chronological sequence on the basis of stratigraphy (reciprocal superposition of features), or in the case of habitation layers on the basis of ceramics. Subsequent analysis of ceramic material enabled to date them more precisely. Also processing and evaluation of the remaining archaeological artifacts, primarily bone artifacts and animal bones, is a part of this thesis. At the end of the thesis the results of the research are counted among the context of the evolution of so called west forecastle, alternatively of the general evolution of the history of Prague Castle.

This thesis aims to assess the social structure of budeč hillfort settlement during the second half of the 9th century to the 10th century in terms of biological anthropology. The first part deals with the processing of skeletal remains from a mass grave "Na Týnici" from the perspective of traumatology. The second part is devoted to anthropologically not assesed burial place around the church of St. Peter, which is the oldest example of the church necropolis in Bohemia. Thesis presents an anthropological analysis of human skeletal remains and their statistical comparison with cemeteries on Budeč hillfort and its hinterland (Zákolany, Na Týnici and Brandýsek) and other early medieval cemeteries in Bohemia and Moravia.