Hillforts are incredibly visual in the landscape, even after thousands of years of erosion.

Symbols of Status
The ramparts (the banks of the hillforts) are made from people digging ditches and pilling the waste uphill to make a bank. Although we refer to that period of time as the ‘Iron Age’, people didn’t use iron initially to make tools as it was viewed as a high status material (possibly due to the magical nature of making a shiny metal from dull looking stone). Instead people used antler picks and the shoulder blades of animals to dig out the ditches.

Some hillforts have many miles of ramparts and it is likely that many people would have been required to dig the ditches, build the banks and put up the palisade (the large wooden fence). This amount of labour would have needed a leader to co-ordinate the work.

Hillforts also come in various sizes, from around 2 hectares up to over 20 hectares (a hectare is just smaller than the size of a football pitch). Some hillforts have elaborate entrances and many ramparts. It has been suggested that these differences may indicate various leaders trying to out-do one another.

Meeting Places
Hillforts are often built on top of hills and are easily seen because of the large banks that surround them. In the past they would also have had a palisade on top of the banks and the smoke from roundhouses’ hearths would have made them even more visible. This may mean that the hillforts were used as meeting places, as beacons in the landscape. Here they may have celebrated important moments such as births, deaths and marriages.

Significant days in the calendar may have been celebrated here, such as the summer and winter solstices and the spring and autumn equinox (although remember that the word “solstice” comes from the Latin words sol (sun) and sistere (to stand still) and "equinox" is derived from the Latin words aequus [equal] and nox [night]).
These dates would have been important days in the Iron Age calendar, especially due to farming. The Spring Equinox, for example, was the day the farmers put their livestock out onto the summer pastures and mountains.

Hillforts could also have been used to hold markets where people from across the area could sell items such as excess food. This would have been important as, through selling excess food for example, people could make money to spend on objects to help them move up the social ladder.