Mount Caburn

Mount Caburn is a 480-foot (146m) isolated hill, one of the highest landmarks in East Sussex, England, about one mile (1.6 km) east of Lewes overlooking the village of Glynde. It is an isolated part of the South Downs, separated by Glynde Reach, a tributary of the River Ouse.

On the summit of Caburn are the remains of an Iron Age hill fort. The hill fort has been repeatedly excavated, by Augustus Pitt Rivers (1877–78), the Curwens (1925—26), the Curwens again (1937–38), and the Sussex Archaeological Society (1996–98). It may have the most excavations per site in Britain, with 170 trenches.

Pollen records (from peat at the southern base) indicate that prior to 2000 BC the hill was covered with dark yew woodlands. The fact that a single Neolithic leaf-shaped arrowhead is the only pre-Bronze Age find on Caburn, despite the extent and duration of excavations, suggests that there was little permanent occupation then.

The summit was initially enclosed in the middle Iron Age (c. 400 BC), with a deep V-shaped ditch and a bank of dumped spoil. Originally the ditch was 8m wide at the top, 2.7m deep, and enclosed an area of 1.9 ha.

Since before the first excavations, it has been assumed that this enclosure was defensive, making a conventional hill fort. However the most recent excavators have challenged this assumption, arguing instead that the site was a religious enclosure, rather than a military fort or fortified farmstead. They point to the contents of the small pits, the insubstantial rampart, and its weak defensive attributes.

There are over 140 burial pits on Caburn: some are circular, some triangular and some rectangular. Each pit was found to be full of artefacts. Deposits included weapons, tools, pottery, coins, querns, and disarticulated human and animal bones. The most recent excavators argue that these are not random, or mere domestic rubbish, but are structured deposits and appear "ritually charged". The NE corner of the enclosure seemed to have special significance, because the high-status objects were mostly deposited there.

Outside the original rampart, on the northern side, there is a great ditch cut into the chalk. This is the side most vulnerable to attack.

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