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Charterhouse Camp

Priddy, GB

Charterhouse Camp

Charterhouse Camp is a univallate Iron Age hillfort in the Mendip district of Somerset, England. The hillfort is situated approximately 0.6 miles (0.97 km) east from the village of Charterhouse. There is some evidence, in the form of burials in local caves, of human occupation since the late Neolith

ic times and the early Bronze Age. The site is associated with Charterhouse Roman Town and may have been the site of Iscalis. The site is a scheduled monument. Hillforts developed in the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age, roughly the start of the first millennium BC. The reason for their emergence in Britain, and their purpose, has been a subject of debate. It has been argued that they could have been military sites constructed in response to invasion from continental Europe, sites built by invaders, or a military reaction to social tensions caused by an increasing population and consequent pressure on agriculture. The dominant view since the 1960s has been that the increasing use of iron led to social changes in Britain. Deposits of iron ore were located in different places to the tin and copper ores necessary to make bronze, and as a result trading patterns shifted and the old elites lost...

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