Around the World July 1, 2011
WALES: In The Lord of the Rings, flaming hilltop beacons are used to communicate between distant kingdoms. But they might not just be fantasy. Iron Age hillforts could have had a similar purpose 2,500 years ago. To test it, a heritage group organized the "Hillfort Glow Experiment," getting 350 volunteers to communicate between 10 hillforts with flares and flashlights (no Middle Earth pyres, though—it is fragile habitat). In some cases, the glow connected hills 25 miles apart.
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