Ham Hill's Violent History

Researchers have finished a three-year investigation into Ham Hill, Britain’s largest Iron Age hillfort. Located in Somerset, the site’s defensive walls stretch nearly three miles, enclosing an area of 220 acres. The settlement flourished throughout the first millennium B.C., but may have suffered a violent confrontation in the first or second century A.D. Gruesome evidence indicates that the remains of hundreds, if not thousands, of slaughtered and dismembered humans are buried on Ham Hill. The date of these burials, together with the discovery of Roman military equipment, suggests that Ham Hill was subject to a violent assault during the early stages of the Roman conquest of Britain.