Tristan Hughes

You mentioned the word hillforts.

So Tom, when we're talking about the British Iron Age, when should we be thinking with hillforts and what should we be thinking?

And Maiden Castle as well.

And I guess also, you also think about the big ramparts.

If you visit one of these places today, one of the stunning things is getting through those ramparts and then being in that open plain in the middle.

For instance, if you're in Maiden Castle and seeing the sheep and all of that.

But it is the ramparts and how deep they are even today that...

Because when these hill forts are being built in the Middle Iron Age, this is still centuries before the Romans arrived.

Is there very much a feeling that there's not written literature down about these people, that we can't label them with the tribal names that we have later from the Romans?

It's just too far back.

And you said elites there because I guess we can't know whether it was a king or a warlord, or as you mentioned, if there even was one for those people.

Is it fair to say they probably had a defensive function, or at least some of them would have had a defensive function?

Not quite right.

Fair enough.

I always think back to Maiden Castle and hearing from Dr. Miles Russell, how back then, actually, with the chalk beneath the grass, you don't realise it, but back then, gleaming white would have been visible for miles around.

And, you know, that is a statement in itself.

So just remembering that, and also what we mentioned earlier with the roundhouses and the colour that would have been visible, you know...

yes okay chalk is white but it's not just black and white almost in the early days back then you know full of technicolor full of wanting to impress and stand out whether it's with the monumental hill forts or with probably an everyday roundhouse yes definitely I mean I think you know I mean

That's correct, yeah.

Well, let's move on then to this other key type assessment, and one that I know you've done a lot of work around, that seems so tied to the later story of Britain's Iron Age.