An atlas of hillforts in Britain and Ireland

在英格兰、威尔士、苏格兰、北爱尔兰和爱尔兰的许多地区，丘陵是铁器时代留下的最令人印象深刻的野外遗产。虽然不可能精确，但在爱尔兰和英国可能有超过4000个。任何关于公元前1000年以后的史前史的学术或通俗叙述都必须包括对山堡作为主要纪念碑类型的讨论：它们的形式和建筑，可能的功能，与它们的环境和考古环境的关系。近年来，在铁器时代的研究中，“区域化”的重要性再次成为一个重要的主题，它需要在地方一级、区域和区域间尺度上提供信息和数据。目前还没有一个综合系统可以为hillforts提供这些信息，尽管有各种各样的数字和纸张形式的来源。然而，这些来源是多种多样的，通常难以获取，并且很难整合以产生更广泛的解释和新的研究问题，因为所有先前的综合通常都是在“国家”（即爱尔兰，英格兰）范围内。此外，通常描述这些网站的大多数方式都是基于正直的例子，但现在有必要将许多被挖掘的遗迹纳入对这些网站的理解中，这些遗迹只能以裁剪标记的形式出现。该项目将创建一个在线互动数据库，其中将包括英国和爱尔兰所有山丘的标准化信息，并能够在从单个山丘到整个集合的范围内进行审讯和分析。该数据库将与谷歌地球/地图相连接，以便在其景观背景下看到山堡的位置。在项目结束时，数据文件将可以在各种软件中重复使用。所掌握的资料将是所有现有资料来源的汇编，重新编排，以提供最大限度的一致性和搜索所有山堡的能力，根据有意义的特征，如壁垒、沟渠和入口的数量和配置，对它们进行评估和比较。将在地方、区域和区域间尺度上进行评价、分析和解释，结果将是一份山堡的纸质地图集，其中的地图表示将与简洁的分析文本相匹配。这将包括对数据结构的广泛讨论，包括考虑什么是山丘，什么不是山丘，为什么不是山丘，以及对不同比例尺上建立的分析和模式的解释，并通过一系列地图和计划进行可视化。这些结果将极大地促进区域性的讨论，以及hillforts如何与其他数据和解释相适应。这项工作将通过对这些遗址的年代证据进行关键的重新评估来反映，包括同位素和其他科学测定、钱币和人工数据以及文献来源：这些纪念碑在公元前一千年和公元一千年都有使用，在各种尺度上对这些遗址的时间范围进行评估将使我们能够更深入地了解时间模式，以匹配上面强调的空间焦点。对整个英国和爱尔兰的这组站点的分析——这是以前从未尝试过的——将产生关于站点之间相似性和差异性的新信息配置，这将挑战主流观点。Hillforts对很多观众都很有兴趣，有时只是因为它们内在的考古价值，但通常是作为更广泛的景观、历史和环境利益的一部分。为了进一步鼓励这种参与的广度，该数据库将被配置为一个hillfort-wiki，能够接受用户生成的内容，以便可以在任何hillfort上附加额外的文本和图像，而不是项目生成的核心数据。

Hillforts are the most impressive field legacy from the Iron Age across many areas of England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Eire. Although precision is not possible, it is likely that there are over 4000 in Ireland and Britain. Any academic or popular account of later prehistory from c. 1000 BC has to include a discussion of hillforts as the dominant monument type: their forms and architecture, possible functions, relationships with their setting and archaeological surroundings. Over recent years within Iron Age studies the importance of 'regionalisation' has emerged again as an important theme and one which requires information and data to be available at both the local level and at regional and inter-regional scales. There is no integrated system that will provide this information for hillforts, although a wide variety of sources exist in digital and paper form. These sources however are diverse, often difficult to access, and hard to integrate to produce wider interpretations and new research questions, since all previous syntheses have generally been at 'national' (i.e. Ireland, England) scales. Furthermore, most of the ways in which these sites are usually described are based on upstanding examples, but it is now essential to incorporate many ploughed-down remains, only visible as cropmarks, into understandings of these sites.This project will create an online interactive database that will include standardised information on all hillforts in the UK and Eire and enable interrogation and analysis at a range of scales from an individual hillfort to the whole collection. The database will be linked to Google Earth/Maps so that the locations of hillforts can be seen within their landscape contexts. At the close of the project, the data file will be available for re-use in a variety of software. The information held will be a compilation of all existing sources, re-structured to provide maximum achievable consistency and the ability to search all hillforts, evaluating and comparing them on meaningful characteristics such as number and configuration of ramparts, ditches and entrances. Evaluation, analysis and interpretation will take place at local, regional and inter-regional scales and the outcomes will be a paper atlas of hillforts, where cartographic presentation will be matched by succinct analytical texts. These will include extensive discussion on the structuring of the data, including consideration of what is and is not a hillfort and why, together with the interpretation of analyses and patterns established at the different scales and visualised through a series of maps and plans. The results will feed significantly into discussions of regionality and how hillforts fit with other data and interpretations. This work will be mirrored by a critical re-assessment of the dating evidence for these sites, including isotopic and other scientific determinations, numismatic and artefactual data, and documentary sources: these monuments are used in both the first millennia BC and AD, and evaluation of the chronological range of these sites at a variety of scales will allow closer readings of patterns through time, to match the spatial focus highlighted above. The analysis of this set of sites across the whole of Britain and Ireland - something not previously-attempted - will generate new configurations of information on similarities and differences amongst sites that will challenge prevailing views.Hillforts are of great interest to a large range of audiences, sometimes just for their intrinsic archaeological value but often as part of wider landscape, historical and environmental interests. Further to encourage the breadth of this participation, the database will be configured as a hillfort-wiki, capable of accepting user-generated content so that additional text and images can be attached to any hillfort, separately from the core data generated by the project,