My definition of hillforts. (I am just saying) not a fun fact, just my opinion

So I think it is fair to say that most of us kind of look at a dictionary and see the definition of a word in it as a Biblical truth, when in reality though there is a legalistic and real world truth to that, most words are more nuanced than the definition, and great wordsmiths can even mould them into all sorts of peculiar and beautiful meanings. I.e Conan Doyle or Steinbeck etc etc works.

So the term of hillforts is not totally defined, I mean the term was well in use  to describe the earthworks which at earlier times had been of unknown origin. Such as the idea were they Saxon, or Roman or Viking, or British. Some take a  powerful caveat to the term to say they were not just Hill forts, but many things, ritual sites, animal enclosures, more largely places to flee to, or even hilltop villages some use the term for structures of totally separate origin in India or New Zealand etc. Plus the term can also be used for sites that were not really on hills, but were or little peninsulas, or some such like

To me, the term is very broad, but tangible, and I think it is helpful to not define it too much. 

I put it in these categories.

(1) The classically imagined hillfort, a earthworks surrounded structure like Maiden Castle or Rhosesmor, in this case you may be not including sites on peninsulas, or some such.

(2) The broader definition of many forts in Britain, from before 1066, and castles, that does not have a other describing moniker such as a broch, or ringfort, a Saxon Burgh, or a Roman site. All in all I mean, the sites larger than homesteads, that were Celtic Iron Age, or Celtic Dark Ages or even Roman times Celtic. Though even for some Celtic fortifications, like ringforts, or the pro towns of South East England, or dykes I can not count them as hillforts. What I mean is for instance a crannog can not be classed as a hillfort, but perhaps a site like Edinburgh Castle, or St Michael's Mount can be said to be put in the hillfort sites, list, in that sense. Even if they do not look like what was classed as hillfort in (1). So some may not be hillforts anymore, but may be hillfort sites, and some may be coastal forts, that are put in the hillfort category, in it's broader definition as either former sites of hillforts, which became so much so castles, (though some castle sites like Dumbarton and DInas Bran retain those hillforts, so much that they can still be called hillforts, not just hillfort sites, 

(3) I even say there are some sites like Edinburgh Castle or Dinas Bran, which today are clearly castles which have evidence of being defensive redoubts before they were a castle. And in that I mean castle as in the idea that the Normans were the first to have castles in Britain of that sort. Even if motte and bailey castles were not stone.

(4) I even count at times sites like St Michael's Mount just as it had a likely a defensive barrier to help the site long ago.

(5) Then lastly, yes some hillfort sites may have been just ritual sites or some such or some other thing rather than military. I still count them as hillforts, Ingleborough, Navan, maybe Uffington, as surely we do not know for sure they were ritual. We can still put it in the category of hillfort even though it was a ritual not military site. For some, they will not be excavated and we will never know, how many of the 4000 or so hillforts were ritual, or whatever sites, why not just accept the term is just a term to some extent. Sometimes it is a definition of a military site, but just look that up I say. Surely the term Hillfort is just a word, it almost might as well be Marshmallow or pillow, it is not the case that the term in itself hillfort has to mean specifically what the word started as, anymore than William Shakespeare, was a shakey spear called William. Yes it is lovely to have words that do the job on the tin, the Stapler, staples, the tin opener opens tins etc etc. Some words though overtime started like that, and then developed to a other meanings. Like how a mouse on a computer was so named as it had the long wire that looked like a tail, and the buttons looking like ears. But now, some mouses have no wire and are oddly shaped, but are still mice, though they look nothing like mice. Yes there is something in the mists of time, that the term has a original base meaning that has a sense and a importance a unifying truth on its collective history, but I think the same is true for hillforts. The term is just a term that describes many structures that on a level could be seen as similar on some ways, and were seen by many as hill forts, and similar to other hill fort type sites,  but in others are not. To my mind yes the term hillfort is a uniting factor that they were mostly defensive fort type sites in some sense, but we can keep that in mind, but also move away from that fact, and keep them all in this box as a category as it has a unifying aspect to it, that I feels has a use to understanding the concepts in history. You just have to then look more at the detail to understand it more, and the caveats and nuances within the subject and term. To a sense hillfort is a descriptive term like a stapler is a stapler and such, but in a sense it is also a term that has a meaning that has taken a step back and seen a broader more complex nuanced list.  So the term hillfort is right, as even if it were by any other name, they would still be what they are, what I said, there, a hillfort. It's like what Shakespeare says about Roses in a way. A rose is still a rose if by any other name. And if you start giving them different names, like a double or treble barrelled decriber, I believe you start getting political. Not that II oppose politics, it has it's place, but if you start describing them, as one describing term, second and third all in one sentence, you are usually displaying what you think they are, when that may just be your, or you group's view. Whether you think they are highly ambiguous sites, or whether you think they are a specific thing, a fortified village, or ritual site whatever. So as I say the term hillfort is a good catch all term, for these sites that were surely of various diverse uses. Indeed maybe it is good we can have all these varied sites, in one title as then we are not segregating sites by task and use so much, which is maybe not always the right thing to do. 

(6) Yes, hillforts overseas, some like castros or oppida in cases are more like some British hillforts, than some other British hillforts, but it is still acceptable to accept the term hillfort in British context lets us understand the history of our British historians interpretation of the subject. So I feel it is OK Britain has a different term for similar structures as all you have to do is look at the subject and see they are similar. You don’t need to rewrite the whole instruction manual and guide for every change in understanding.

(7) Yes some sites further afield are called Hillforts despite having a totally separate history, again that is OK, just look at the facts and you find that out.

(8) All in all it is a descriptive term on a sense but also a name that has lost it's meaning.

(9) Sometimes the term hill fort is used interchangeably with the term hillfort, some see the idea that they are different, as a hill fort could define a any fort on a hill, and a hillfort just a specific category of Iron Age etc site, but others see them as the same word.

(10) Lastly I like the term, it has a use as a broad vague term.

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It seems British Camp, and Pictish fort, were used in the Victorian era by many as a name for Iron Age hillforts, but the term hillfort became the more commonly used term, when it started, maybe before, or after I have not investigated. Certainly the term hillfort has been used for a long time. Indeed Pitt-Rivers in the 1860s, was talking of the hill-forts of Sussex in South East England, I will not search more than that on the origins of the term. Also on some old maps of the past, the word fort or camp, or the local name are sometimes used when overlaid over a outline of such hillfort sites. I have even seen the terms Caratacus' Camp and Celtic camp used. Plus even from a 1940s book, by the Hawkes, a Iron Age Camp, or even just Camp. 

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OK another bit, What is in a name. Well I have studied British and Irish hillfort names for my quiz questions. What I realise is that despite them sounding so different it seems, the vast majority fit into these categories, and are a variation on a theme. That almost all have a word in them that is either a Celtic or English or Viking language term, sometimes very old terms, denoting a hill, like law, or bryn, or a Celtic or same again languages term denoting a fortification site, or sometimes less often a kind of olde term for a major settlement. With that there may be a descriptive term describing the geography there of the site, or the site itself, and possibly with or instead a name of a person, usually from history and pre-history, sometimes major, with sometimes it possibly being a person who was not that famous, who may have ben a important figure there at a time, whose name often diverges in some way from it's original wording. Sometimes the fort gets named after a nearby settlement as well also, so pretty good there. There are likely other name types as well. That is what I have found though, despite there being so many possible variations of these names, maybe another is like Fort of the, and then a name of a people or group. I am sure this list could be expanded for ages, but that is all I want to say on that topic of just the names for now. I mean some hillforts in Wales, many, indeed are a variation on a theme, and they make me think, they could have been very local names. Like a local farmer, or villager or homestead fellow saying I just going up to the Gaer, or up to the bare hill of the fort, which is why so many have similar names. There was no need to have lots of radically different names, when not many people outside the area had a need to have lots of different names, and the local utilitarian name was good enough. I think there is a bit of that in England and Scotland but not so much, as there there are a few more names that sound like they had people's names or groups added, though there as well, really it is a similar thing. Also there are some hybrid names, which are terms bringing in words from, 2 languages, the classic one is to have the old British term for fort, then add the Saxon term for castle, and then the later English term, so you have 3 words for castle in the same name.  Or perhaps even a photo semantic term, which turns a Welsh / British term into a garbled version of a English word, that sounds similar, but does not mean the same. Like Maiden Castle started as the Mai Dun of course a Celtic term for Great Hill. So no doubt, in England the Viking and English language impact and history have made a wider variety of language origins for names of forts there. Scotland's hillforts in many cases adopted Scots English names, but often had Gaelic names, Norse names, and old British names. All in all though there is a bit of a just a variation of a theme for all hillforts in Britain, and to a extent in Ireland. So that is what I say on hillforts then for you all. for now.

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So I also will say most of my pages are on sites I have been to, as if I have been to it, I have a unique selling point on it, of having seen it in my view. Though I do some pages I have not been to.