Note 68 — Chapter II · ANGLO-SAXON FORTIFICATIONS

Excavation has recently shown that many of the great hill-forts were permanently inhabited, and it is now considered improbable that they were originally built as camps of refuge. It seems more likely that this use, of which there are undoubted instances in historic times (see Cæsar, Bello Gallico, vi., 10, and v., 21), belonged to a more advanced stage of development, when population had moved down into the lower and cultivatable lands, but still used their old forts in cases of emergency.