| Abstract: | Summary. The origins of four Hampshire hillforts are examined and their relationships to linear ditch systems are defined. Comparable sites are briefly considered. From this evidence a pattern of change covering the first half of the first millennium BC can be distinguished beginning with open settlement and ending with strongly defended hillforts set in a densely occupied landscape. Reasons for the transformation are considered, the most likely being a change from communally owned land to the individual control of defined territories. |
