Hillfort, Ringfort – or Oppidum?

Getting the names right for things is sometimes difficult enough in your own language, let alone a foreign one. The bulk of this post and the Page that accompanies it – I ‘double-up’ in order to make finding places on the blog easier – is my translation of the summary of Jean Vaquer’s 4-year work at the site. And the first problem encountered is what to call such a site. Une enceinte annulaire du Néolithique final is the title he gives it – but when Google Translator returned with ‘A pregnant annular Neolithic’ , I realised I was going to have to do it the long way.
This site is one of ‘six enceintes à large fossé ‘- ’six pregnant wide gap’? Or a hillfort? An oppidum? A defensive enclosure? A circular ditch-and-dyke encampment?
Vaquer himself, in an academic paper, calls it ‘a fortified languedocian late neolithic site’ – which is the bare minimum. I will call it variously a hillfort, as it is located on a hill though modest at 112 metres/350 ft. and it is fortified with two concentric earth-banks and a wide ditch plus wooden palissade [palisade,or fence] – a ringfort, and a defensive enclosure. For as I soon realised – this structure was unlike any other in the region: certainly no ordinary encampment/habitation and no proto trading-village or oppidum, which were built over a thousand years later – though often confusingly, but not surprisingly, on the same site.
Jean Vaquer’s research has revealed a unique example of Neolithic architecture in southern France.

Simulation et modélisation architecturale: Patrick Pérez et Frédéric Lesueur

Continued, with more photos, plans and text, on the Mourral-Millegrand Ringfort Page.

The Real Gallo-Roman Hillfort

The information given on Quid for the Oppidum du Pic St-Martin is accurate – while the new IGN Seies Bleu map – and the www.geoportail.fr placing – is out by nearly 2 km. Its position is 2. 39′ 54″ E, 43. 20′ 11″ N and it is a most impressive structure. The site was occupied continuously from the Iron Age through to the arrival of the Visigoths. The earliest inhabitants were possibly the Ibères or the Ligures, but more certainly the Volques Tectosages [ a Celtic tribe that put up a fierce resistance to the invading Romans, and who were themselves an invading force from Middle Europe - the name translates best as Land-hungry Wolves ].

The scree slope rises about 300 feet from here to the walls.

More photos and info on the Pic St-Martin Hillfort Page

Standing Stones, and lying maps

Quid is France’s Encyclopedia Britannica, on paper since 1967 and online since 1997. IGN is the Institute Géographique National – it began as an army mapping service in 1887 and went public in 1967. They are invaluable tools in researching old stones but they are not without weaknesses. This is what I found for Siran, a village nearby in the Minervois:

Cachette de fondeur de l’âge du Bronze à Centeilles. [Traces of Bronze Age smelting]
29 dolmens* et tumulus.
Habitat préhistorique à Centeilles, Ausine, Belvédère.
Champ des Morts.
Nécropole 1^er âge du Fer à La Prade.
14 villas romaines, principalement : Najac, Saint-Michel de Montflaunez.
Oppidum du pic St-Martin occupé de l’âge du Fer au 6^ème apr.J.-C.
Mosaïque gallo-romaine* à la chapelle de Centeilles.
Tombes wisigothiques à La Rouviole, Le Champ des Morts, Centeilles, Saint-Martin, Saint-Pierre des Troupeaux, Saint-Gontran.

And this is what the new IGN map says is there:

Centeilles seemed central to this rich and diverse little corner, and was one of the few from the list to be marked on the map, as was the Gallo-Roman fort [camp or oppidum] closeby. That confident red star looked a certain bet, so I set off this saturday to see what I could find – knowing that information on Quid could well be long out-of-date and that I could be beating around the bush all afternoon for nothing. But not suspecting that the map could get it so wrong.

The 13th.C. Chapelle de Notre-Dame-de-Centeilles was certainly there with its stone roof and holy well – as was a host of other fascinating structures and features [see following Posts & Pages] – and so were the remains of a massive emplacement deep in the wood where the map shows the red star. It wasn’t until I got home and compared this new map with the 1967 version that doubt set in about The Thing in the Wood. I now needed to persuade Jessi and Mary to come out on another hunt this sunday.

The story of this weekend’s two visits to Centeilles is complicated, so the photos about it all are over on the Pages section. Starting with the Not the Gallo-Roman Camp Page. And as fast as I can post them, the following will appear :-

The real Ancien Camp Gallo-Romain on the Pic St-Martin Hillfort Page.

The dolmen of Centeilles – or les Pierres Plantées, take your pick – on the Centeilles Dolmen Page.

The dolmen du Mourel des Fadas – on the Dolmen des Fadas Page.

The Chapelle de Notre-Dame de Centeilles – the extraordinary frescoes, its history, holy well and capitelles – on the Chapelle de Centeilles Page.

And the second earlier church at Centeilles [in many ways even more extraordinary] – on the Chapelle Ruinée Page. There was a third even earlier church here at one time – but it’s been lost . . .

And then there’s those Roman villas, and the visigoth necropoli, and the neolithic habitat here too, somewhere – but I need another visit or ten, for them.

Cros hillfort

Commanding the valley-plain of the Aude, at the edge of a plateau, the Cros hill-fort was built at the end of the Bronze Age (VIII-VII bc). This defensive construction is the most complete exemple of a fortification of this period in west Languedoc. The 470 metre long wall encloses an area of 5,25 hectares or 13 acres. It was constructed without elaborate care in dry-stone walling, 2.5 m. wide, with two facets and a rubble in-fill. Its original height was 2 metres – now reduced to one. Bastions or towers are still visible: these would have been higher. Wooden palissades would raise the height further.

Now covered by pines that provide welcome shade – the original fort would have stood on clear ground: at 350 m. above sea-level this would have been cold and exposed in winter, and very hot in summer.

Go to Pages, on the right, for more info, photos and references.