Crickley Hill is an important Neolithic and Iron Age site in the Cotswold Hills of Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, known to scholars primarily for its evidence of recurring violence. The first structures of the site included an enclosure with a causeway, dated approximately ~3500-2500 BC. It was rebuilt several times, but was aggressively attacked and abandoned during the middle Neolithic period.
Iron Age at Crickley Hill
Some traces of a minor Beaker period site are in evidence, but the second major occupation was an Iron Age hillfort, between the 7th and 6th centuries BC. The Iron Age occupation was a triangular patch on the top of Crickley Hill, including an area of approximately nine acres, and housing perhaps 50-100 people. A rubble-cored timber-laced rampart measuring between 5 and 7 meters in thickness surrounded the settlement, and a rock-cut, flat-bottomed ditch paralleled the rampart.
Nevertheless, in the 6th century BC, the Iron Age fort was burned and abandoned; a concentration of some ~400 arrowheads at the palisade and entrance attested to the level of violence.
Excavations at Crickley Hill
Crickley Hill was excavated by Philip O. Dixon between the late 1960s and the early 1990s. Dixon has published several detailed monographs about the site.
Sources and Further Information
This glossary entry is a part of the About.com guide to the Iron Age hillforts and the Dictionary of Archaeology.
Cunliffe B. 1984. Gloucestershire and the Iron Age of Southern Britain. Transactions of the Bristol Gloucestershire Archaeological Society 102:5-15.
Dixon, PW 1979. A Neolithic and Iron Age site on a hill top in southern England. Scientific American 241(5):42-50.
Dixon, PW. 1977. Crickley Hill and Gloucestershire Prehistory. Gloucester County Council, Gloucester.
