Atlas of Hillforts ? 1 million well spent?

[BAJR]

I have looked in awe at the form... and am baffled. I have looked in awe at the million pound grant and am shocked. Hells teeth... for years people have numbered ditches and banks ( which you could do from google earth. ) and er... you are no closer to knowing anything about them... ANYTHING!!!

What am I talking about?

Prof Gary Lock, of Oxford University, said: "We want to shed new light on why they were created and how they were used."

Despite their large numbers there has been little academic work on hill forts, how they were used and how they varied across Britain and Ireland, the researchers say.

with 1 million pounds We could excavate and date the major phases of activity of almost ALL the hillforts in Scotland (for example) . yes... we could date, survey and record almost every hillfort in Scotland

This is academics not understanding the citizen who they want to carry out their work for them... yipes.

CAn't say I am impressed. Am I being unfair.

and what extra will we learn that we did not know before?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-23203500

[h=1]An Atlas of Hillforts in Britain and Ireland[/h]

Hillforts are one of the most prominent types of prehistoric monument across many parts the British Isles and Ireland as well as being the most obvious legacy of the Iron Age period. Despite fieldwork and changing interpretations of these iconic sites they are still poorly understood in terms of documenting and analysing the variation in characteristics and form across regional and national boundaries.

The Atlas of Hillforts Project has just been awarded £950,000 from the Arts and Humanities Research Council to try and remedy this situation.

Version 1 (June 2013)
[B]Important: please use this form with the accompanying Notes for Guidance, which are downloadable from the Project website[/B]. Read the notes before attempting to fill in this form.
This form is also available as a Word document in which case it can be either posted or emailed to us, alternatively you can transcribe the information into the web-based form and submit electronically – see the Notes for details.


Please ensure you complete and submit the form in one go. This page will not automatically refresh, but it is not possible to save your entry part way through.


http://www.arch.ox.ac.uk/hillforts-form.html

[TABLE]
[TR="class: row_113 odd"]
[TD="class: colspan explanation, colspan: 2"]

3.10. For each quadrant how many of each of the bank/ditch combinations are there (see diagram in Notes for Guidance):

[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: row_114 even"]
[TD="class: col_0 col_first"]NE BANK/WALL (NO DITCH)[/TD]
[TD="class: col_1 col_last"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: row_115 odd"]
[TD="class: col_0 col_first"]NE BANK/DITCH[/TD]
[TD="class: col_1 col_last"]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: row_116 even"]
[TD="class: col_0 col_first"]NE BANK/DITCH/BANK[/TD]
[TD="class: col_1 col_last"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: row_117 odd"]
[TD="class: col_0 col_first"]NE OTHER[/TD]
[TD="class: col_1 col_last"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: row_118 even"]
[TD="class: col_0 col_first"]NE COMMENTS[/TD]
[TD="class: col_1 col_last"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: row_119 odd"]
[TD="class: col_0 col_first"]SE BANK/WALL[/TD]
[TD="class: col_1 col_last"]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: row_120 even"]
[TD="class: col_0 col_first"]SE BANK/DITCH[/TD]
[TD="class: col_1 col_last"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: row_121 odd"]
[TD="class: col_0 col_first"]SE BANK/DITCH/BANK[/TD]
[TD="class: col_1 col_last"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: row_122 even"]
[TD="class: col_0 col_first"]SE OTHER[/TD]
[TD="class: col_1 col_last"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: row_123 odd"]
[TD="class: col_0 col_first"]SE COMMENTS[/TD]
[TD="class: col_1 col_last"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: row_124 even"]
[TD="class: col_0 col_first"]SW BANK/WALL (NO DITCH)[/TD]
[TD="class: col_1 col_last"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: row_125 odd"]
[TD="class: col_0 col_first"]SW BANK/DITCH[/TD]
[TD="class: col_1 col_last"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: row_126 even"]
[TD="class: col_0 col_first"]SW BANK/DITCH/BANK[/TD]
[TD="class: col_1 col_last"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: row_127 odd"]
[TD="class: col_0 col_first"]SW OTHER[/TD]
[TD="class: col_1 col_last"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: row_128 even"]
[TD="class: col_0 col_first"]SW COMMENTS[/TD]
[TD="class: col_1 col_last"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: row_129 odd"]
[TD="class: col_0 col_first"]NW BANK/WALL (NO DITCH)[/TD]
[TD="class: col_1 col_last"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: row_130 even"]
[TD="class: col_0 col_first"]NW BANK/DITCH[/TD]
[TD="class: col_1 col_last"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: row_131 odd"]
[TD="class: col_0 col_first"]NW BANK/DITCH/BANK[/TD]
[TD="class: col_1 col_last"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: row_132 even"]
[TD="class: col_0 col_first"]NW OTHER[/TD]
[TD="class: col_1 col_last"][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: row_133 odd"]
[TD="class: col_0 col_first"]NW COMMENTS[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

[pdurdin]

What is the money being used for when it's all going to be run by volunteers?

No, you're not being unfair.

[Dinosaur]

Didn't someone bring out a gazetteer of hillforts as a BAR many moons ago? Not that it was exactly gripping reading...

[Oxbeast]

What is the money being used for when it's all going to be run by volunteers?

No, you're not being unfair.

Its not all run by volunteers. Have a look at the staff page. There are 5 staff members and 2 PhD/DPhil candidates. I should think most of the money is budgeted for staff wages/bursaries. They do have research aims, for example:

The ultimate aim of this PhD will be to build a chronological framework for this monument type. The results of this chronological framework will be twofold, firstly it will provide a critical assessment of the efficacy of dating methods for this monument type, secondly it will develop an understanding of the chronological relationships between these sites on differing levels of scale. This will include the historical sequence of site construction, use and abandonment. This work will also undertake and evaluation of the more recent statistical dating models being applied in hillfort studies.

I thought community involvement and using volunteers was supposed to be a good thing? And the people who run it can get paid some money?

[barkingdigger]

With seven folk, that could be £135,700 each, and over four years it comes to a paltry £34k pa. Seeing as most of them have "day jobs", that'd be a nice little earner! Of course, one hopes the actual project design has lots of other justifiable costs than just staff salaries, so our indignation at the money may well be misplaced. However, it still begs the question of how many new pearls of wisdom we will receive about hillforts for an investment of a million squids...

And (like Dino) I am concerned that this learned project is starting with a facile "informer's" questionnaire, when surely the folks involved should have harvested this basic info from the reams of already-published material on what is a definitely finite set of monuments? Seems odd to start such an expensive high-profile project by saying "Can you tell us if there are any hillforts lurking in your neighbourhood?"...

[Land-Escapist]

I am sceptical about this project but also intrigued. I studied hillforts and enclosures in a small region in Scotland for my thesis and one of the issues was the very use of the word hillfort. It does say they are looking to challenge what a hillfort is but it doesn't specify if they will just focus on what are already classed as hillforts or whether they will discuss enclosures. If it is categorised as that in the classic sense, then does that mean 'enclosures' will be neglected altogether? They would probably need much longer to tackle that issue! I attempted to build a framework but found it tricky making sure that a. the dates were contextually sound and b. exactly where they were located stratigraphically so that I could distinguish as near as damnit when ditches had been created. I wish them luck in the research side of things but for someone to be trying to build a chronological framework for the whole of the UK just for a PhD, that again sounds like it could take much longer than 4 years.

Barkingdigger: I can think of several publications, mainly during the 70s (e.g. Forde-Johnstone, Hogg, Harding etc), on hillforts although an update would be interesting in terms of how their condition has deteriorated over the past thirty years. Dinosaur: someone did publish a gazzetteer of sorts, think it was something to do with their military characteristics - it was epic and I cannot remember the name of the guy who did it. There are regional studies as well but I can only think of ones in a Scottish context - Kokeza BAR and the RCAHMS surveys as examples. So a lot can be gleaned from publications as well as HER records. So it does seem strange that they are putting a call out to volunteers when surely the vast majority of info is available through the usual channels.

On the other hand, as someone who studied them for a few years, I say good luck to them. I like to see a bit more publicity about these rather enigmatic sites and its a good idea to get volunteers and community involved in their local heritage, but ideally it could be in a more structured way, rather than a generic shout out. The form seems a bit complicated and highly subjective as well so how much more information can be gleaned is again one to watch.

We shall see how it progresses!

[Jack]

Ah, was gonna say...

'Dating even a single of these large (often) and LONG-LIVED monuments is a job and a half.

And I agree with you Land-esc, what is and what isn't any 'type' of monument isn't as easy as it seems and can create its own systematic errors to the data before you even start.

But as always, more dating has to be better......as long as they choose their techniques and samples carefully........and then publish all the important info.'

But then I realised that its just a survey of what the public think and see about what they think is a hill fort.
The only point I can see is to waste some money.
Better to have an army of postgrads looking through google earth and/or LIDAR data for them!
You'd get more accurate data.

[Oxbeast]

But then I realised that its just a survey of what the public think and see about what they think is a hill fort.
The only point I can see is to waste some money.
Better to have an army of postgrads looking through google earth and/or LIDAR data for them!
You'd get more accurate data.

Why would you think that its just a survey of what the public think a hillfort is? They do expressly mention that they want to know more about hillforts that are only known from cropmarks. Using volunteers is only one source of data: they are going to be using local and national datasets as well. If I were them, I would be directing the volunteers towards the sites about which sod all is known. As for using Google Earth, plenty of hillforts are covered in scrub. I can think of lots of examples where extra circuits of banks and ditches or other internal/external can be seen on early aerial photos which can't now be seen on Google Earth.

There is rather a lot of sour grapes and dog in the manger on this thread. I'm sure that it has occurred to the project team that they are going to need some kind of discussion about what hillforts are and aren't, and the difference between them and enclosures..

As for:

The only point I can see is to waste some money.

Nice to see archaeologists giving each other that kind of support. I'm sure your clients think the same about you, Jack.

[Wax]

"The project and its host Institutions bear no responsibility for any access or health and safety issues that may arise during your participation in this project."

This taken directly from the project web site worries me the most. They really have not thought through the isssues of involving volunteers in field work. Much as I would encourage such projects they need indepth planning. I will look at the web site in a bit more detail but this and the structure of the forms does not indicate to me that they have really engaged with the volunteering side of things. I hope I am wrong.

I would imagine that a majority of Hillforts are on private property (National Trust and local Councils are technically a private landowners who allow public access).

[Kel]

"The project and its host Institutions bear no responsibility for any access or health and safety issues that may arise during your participation in this project."

Health & saftey-wise, they're not talking about digging-type field work though. If you look at the form, it's just observation-based. TBH it's the type of info you could gather whilst walking the dog (albeit a rather fit and patient one). If there were serious health & safety risks to the requested work, then we'd have to ban the public from hillforts altogether.

I do think that potential access issues ought to be more explicit i.e. "Not all hillforts will be available for this type of direct observation, and we bear no responsibility for the emotional distress caused by you being escorted off private property at the wrong end of a shotgun with someone yelling 'Gerroff moi laaaand' after you."