Fortifications in their Natural and Cultural Landscape: From Organising Space to the Creation of Power

Papers presented at the International workshop ‘The location of hillforts in their natural and cultural landscape’, organised by the EAA Community on Fortification Research (COMFORT) Schleswig, March 5th/6th, 2020 and the EAA-session #448 (Budapest 2020) ‘Just a demonstration of power? The setting of strongholds within their landscape’, August 29th, 2020.

Fortifications are undoubtedly one of the most fascinating examples among the numerous cultural monuments of prehistory and history, representing a widespread, multi-faceted, and long-term cultural phenomenon.
The contributions in this book – going back to two workshops held in 2020 – focus on various aspects of fortifications, investigating how these monuments can be understood in their specific setting as an expression of interaction with changing landscapes and histories. Fortifications enacted as features for organising space and creating landscapes with specific intended functions, such as establishing sacred or ritual landscapes or acting as expressions of a new political power, they maintained established spatial orders, while they also played a role in changing and reorganising space as a consequence of transforming political, cultural, or natural conditions.