@@pwhitewick what about their (much smaller than today) livestock? Under siege, they'd still want to water the cattle (average 200kg) , sheep (30kg), goats, pigs (70kg), hens, surely? 1 and a half gallons per 45 kg by one estimate. What size herd would sustain a population of 300 people? The volume of water needed would go beyond rudimentary storage capacity.
@@CGM_68 Sieges were rare, and in the rare event they did happen, you weren't going to be able to save your livestock. You just had to eat them. So I wouldn't include sustaining the livestock for long periods of time in part of your siege calculations.
In the absence of data let's first do a guesstimate. Let's assume 150 animals on Beacon Hill, Hampshire, to establish a volume, we can then decide to half it, or double it as required. [1 gallon is 4.546092 litres] 50 cattle need 1,513 litres/day minimum. 40 pigs require 422 litres minimum. Sheep are generally more frequent than goats throughout the period in a ratio of approximately 3 to 1. 30 sheep 136 litres 10 goats 45 litres 20 chickens 3 litres. That's just short of a total of 2,000 litres for each day of the siege. It would be a considerable effort to transport 1000s of litres of water to the top. Storage would be have to be evident in the archaeological record. Then consider the need for fire fighting, should the besiegers try to burn you out. Not much good if you dowse the flames with your drinking water. I guess loose earth could be used to smother the flames, since it's a difficult question, how much water would it take to dowse the flames on 15 huts.
In Australia many rural homes use water tanks that gather water from the rain that falls on the roof for drinking water. I can't help wondering if it could also have been as simple as basic roof gutters leading to barrels to collect water. If it works now in dry Australia, surely it'd work well in the UK. Nothing would exist in the archaeological record of such given stains in the ground show footings, but not the roof...but it is a very simple solution to the water issue.
Hmmm… their thatched roofs would have been different, but famously the English rain is far more frequent. Dew ponds collecting rainwater seem more likely than roofs.
Eaves troughs would be quite labor intensive, but possibly you could drain drip trenches down a back slope into a lined basin or cistern. Several round houses on a slight ridge might make it worthwhile?
I wonder if they thought about or had the ability to do rain water capture from the dwellings. If so this saves some of the trips down the hill to collect water. We will never know as the tanks and gutters will have been wooden so rotted to nowt over the years.
I'm guessing this may have been a part of it as well. It's super common for fortresses to have rain-fed cisterns and very strict rules about not urinating/defecating inside the walls. Castillo San Cristóbal in San Juan, PR is one example of a (modern age) hill fort which has huge cisterns that collect water that fall from anywhere on top of the hill. They didn't allow pets inside the walls and indeed they would kill any stray cat they found inside the fortress, so as to not contaminate their drinking water. And then also, as per his conclusion at the end, it's quite common to carry your drinking water from a nearby source, even right through to the modern age in many places in Africa. Also, African women tend to carry 20L of water in one trip (for up to 4 miles or more) when they're fetching water, so I have no doubt that men accustomed to it could carry quite a bit more still. Plus, let's not forget about draft animals, which they had.
And to add on, if the rain falling onto the top of the hill was naturally collecting anywhere as it fell down off the hill, either on the surface level or coming out of a spring on the side, you could collect it there too.
Along with your deduction, I am inclined to believe that they built catch basins an cisterns. And don't forget that >2000 years ago, they had much more regular rainfall. 😎
These hill forts are surrounded by long circular ditches. Have the archaeologists checked any of them for clay linings? Even the runoff from such a construction would be substantial and could be captured without going very far from the top.
Could you perhaps do a short video on dew ponds and the geology of wells? You hint at them and reasons why they'd work or not work a few times, but don't really go into detail. Dew ponds are such a feature of the downs it would be nice to know a bit more about them.
Okay Paul, so next question would be : What did they use to carry the water? No plastic in those days (laugh's at self saying that...) and anything else would be heavy empty, let alone with 10L of water inside - if they could make something that big even. Troublesome! Thank you for another excellent video. Cheers, Warren :)
Domesticated horses were present in the British Isles from about 2000BC onwards. Animal hides could have been used to make waterskins. Sheep, goats. deer and boar skins would have done the job with domesticated horses to carry the full waterskins.
Good question, that. Fundamental, really. There are existing dew-ponds at Badbury Rings. Is it possible that ‘sumps’ in the ditches could have served as rainwater reservoirs?
i'm pretty sure if in need they had ways to catch extra rainwater. these people were as smart and resourcefull as we are. greatly reducing the need to bring up water. thing is alot of these would be makeshift and not of long lasting materials and probably removed after use so the chance to find anything related to this are rather slim
Paul, I think your water requirements conclusions are possibly unrealistic. Firstly 1.5 litres per person per day is only just enough water for the occupants to survive. But what about cooking? What about cleaning and maintenance, not just of themselves but also equipment? And the big one - what about livestock? A key element of a hill fort is that it is a fortification. It can resist a protracted siege over days, weeks or even months. The occupants must have had knowledge of how to extract water that is not available to us.
I can think of maybe 7 hillforts close to me in West Devon/East Cornwall, all bar one are close to a river. The one away from a river has a marsh area below it, which was probably a large pond at one time. I personally think there were many a varied assortment of water storage. Even Tintagel, pre medieval castle, had a well.
Another comment having watched the whole thing. I still think wells played a part. Water is only ever (here in the uk at least) never more than a few metres under foot. Dew ponds could help, that would probably the only way if cattle or other animals were involved. Also, hillfors must have been inhabited, you wouldnt go to all that trouble of building the defences for nothing 🤷
UUuuummm .. @ 13.20 Thats ok but it doesnt take livestock into consideration.. a cow alone needs at least 50 ltrs per day, with calf considerably more.
Another GREAT video tackling anotger mystery..maybe they had a mixture of dew ponds, water in the ditches and dug puts to collect rainwater. Maybe a video about dew ponds and visits to those? Great scenery. Thank you.😊😊😊😊
Dew ponds seems to be the answer if no wells have been found. The Egyptians might might have the answer at that time. Pyramid building would have been thirsty work.
Ox & cart. Cattle walk themselves to water while out grazing. Dew ponds and rain storage. If they can supply tons of wood to the site they can move water.
What about using animals to assist? Surely, oxen or mules/ponies could carry much more than a human? Probably only need three or four to supply and have excess per day, ( as long as stotage was OK, but probably end up being brewed to last longer and for safety).
If the hillforts were only occupied part-time accumulated rainwater might be sufficient, if lined pools had been prepared. Don't forget the ancient Britons had horses and chariots and probably wagons and carts (the Gauls definitely did) which would make carrying water much easier. I've always thought the hillforts would be a pretty bleak place to spend the winter, exposed to all the weather. Surely, no-one would want to occupy one in January unless they absolutely had to!
Taking apart of the era any ability to completely prevent movement in and out is probably impossible. Plus if you are moving there due to hostile intent you take it with you , enough for a few days. Then back to local knowledge, how to get out and bring back water. Finally, build houses, collect the run off from roofs.
My instinct was a "cistern" for catching rain water. I looked up "dew pond" and the Wikipedia entry had some interesting things to say that caught my eye like the "chalk puddle" used to make one. Where my father grew up every house had a cistern and many of these dew ponds of every size are dotted about- primarily for livestock.
Scarborough Castle, on a seaside clifftop hill, between 200-300 feet high, was occupied, as a Hill fort from at least as far back as the Iron Age, in the 4th century AD there was a Roman Signal Station on the edge of the cliff, & in the Medieval period a mighty stone Castle. The Iron Age site included a number of bottle shape storage pits for grain, with various artifacts in their fills proving domestic occupation. Right in the heart of this area, and beside the Roman station there is a stone lined well, which served the Priest's house attached to the remains of a chapel built into the remains of the Roman structure, before the Norman conquest, which continued to serve the Castle through the Medieval period. At the heart of the Castle, near the 12th century Keep, & some distance from the Roman & Iron Age finds there is a well, some 170 feet deep, & stone lined for nearly half this distance from the top down. This still contains water, somewhere way down in the bottom, out of sight from the top without a light. The point is that your mention of the impossibility of making a well to reach water at a hill fort is pertinent to the Scarborough situation, because the rock that forms the hilltop on which Scarborough Castle, & former Hill fort stands is composed of thick layers of limestone on top of sandstone, underneath which are further layers of shale & other rocks, all exposed in the surrounding cliff faces. Yet there clearly were wells on the site, likely from an early date, which therefore included the period of the occupation as a hill fort. Certainly the Romans would have used the well by their station. That is interesting, because if the well had Roman origins associated with the tower one would have expected it to have been within the safety of the circuit of wall built to protect the tower. That it was not suggests that it already existed before the Romans used the site, or that it was not built until a later period, presumably therefore when the chapel was constructed. However it is very close to the priest house foundations, & may have been overridden by them, & the fact that there was a well nearby in the castle would seem to make the need for another at the chapel unnecessary, therefore an earlier, Iron Age, date is more likely. Interestingly, at a much later period, when the Castle received a considerable Garrison following the Jacobite rising of 1745, the water of the well by the chapel was diverted into a large, brick vaulted semi underground chamber, constructed in the Roman fort ditch, in which a large cistern was constructed to collect them, along with a major part of any rainwater that fell on the hilltop, via a series of drains made right across the site. This cistern still holds water today. So a large hilltop can be supplied with water, via similar drain/collection systems, or by the digging of wells, & as well as the collection from roofs etc, & at a push, by human or animal carriage. In just the same way the large amount of grain for which the 'silos' at Scarborough were dug was fair more than could have been grown on the site, even in the remaining 16 acres or so of ground available, though there may have been a bit more at earlier times, but still not much more. This grain then will have had to have been carried uphill also to the site, in considerable quantities. As with grain then so with water, if needed, by either human or animal carriage. At the height of a siege during the English Civil War, a shortage of water for the large garrison of some 700 soldiers, with some horses, cattle, & womenfolk, servants etc within the Castle, men had to resort to a fresh water spring at the base of the cliff to fetch water into the castle, under gunfire from enemy ships etc. so bringing it up the cliffs was possible, if not normal outside of an emergency.
One sees video of women and children in Africa carrying 20 or 25 litre canisters of water. Say you were using hide containers, would the container itself weigh 10kg when wet? Then carrying 10 or 15 litres of water becomes easily possible for people who are used to carrying weights.
Hi Paul, excellent video. One thought that occurs to me is that perhaps they never resolved this problem and were only able to sustain life high up during periods when they could collect enough water. As an aside a short while ago I saw a report showing how water was being harvested from the clouds high up in the Andes in nets which were then collected the condensation and channeled it down the mountainside to where it was needed. All the best!!
People used to walk further, even today, in some places, you still see people walking miles for water. That said, if there was any way of getting any water nearer & easier, they would have used it.
Nothing moved that was heavy without mules or draught animals. Climate was probably warmer and wetter too. Mild beer was the safest thing to drink anywhere, and several pints drunk breakfast, lunch, and tea, was pretty normal.
Hillforts are like little floating Islands in land mostly under water The water level has dropped massively since when they were first used If you put the correct water level in you would have to swim down
You often find water on or near the tops of hills. At least in my experience anyway! They would never have built a settlement without a nearby water source. Perhaps they were really good rainwater engineers?
Hi paul i just had an idea on the water problem for hill fort wouldn t it be possible for the people to clay line all the ditches around it and when it rained the ditches would fill up over over time then at least could use that for the livestock
Clay in itself would be a start, but I think you need to mix it with a gravel too... think Navvies and Canals. I would mean, knowledge of that, knowledge of its location... but in principle yes. The only issue... lack of any archaeological evidence.
The climate was cooler 2000 years ago there would have been more rain, rain collection and wells. Archeology could find water retention ponds, and wells.
Many do not know of why springs appear towards the tops of hills, for them only to then pour down the hills under gravity. I live in North Holloway in London and in the vicinity of an old Roman Fort, with its location being due to it being one of the rise points of the old Hackney Brook and which used to run through Highbury Vale. But why do springs defy gravity and start towards the tops of hills, as they break the surface? Well this is where science must be revaluated and with the earth's electrical field being seen to be coming into play. With the force of electromagnetism being 10^39 or, 1000 billion billion billion billion times more powerful than gravity. Plus at other times both the electrical environment would have changed and with spring points moving due to unground movement in the landscape. When a estate garden in Totteridge, I checked with the local vicar's old map and which showed some different springs points to be in different places locally and to where one had appeared in the garden. With the changes mainly happening after the big long summer heatwave of '76.
So what, are you a four year old wanting a medal? 😂 The rest of us are actually watching another great video from Paul, rather than worrying about being first to comment only.
Here in Wales the answer is simple. Simply place pots, pits and other containers outside and wait a few minutes for the rain! Job done! Seriously most hillforts hereabout have streams or ponds onsite or very close nearby. In other parts of the world, indigenous folk are more than used to carrying water some distance if neccesary, in containers back home. This is common and only folk today who are used to obtaining water, cleaned and out of the tap on order, will have any trouble imagining our prehistoric ancestors mindset and fortitude simply doing what needs to be done day by day to live. We musn't make the mistake of judging our ancestors ability and creativity, based on our own very limited abilities.
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Have you heard the joke about the 3 holes in the ground? …. Well, well, well
Ive been shouting dew ponds since the video started.
I know... I can hear you!
what about the sheet on posts condensation / rain method too
@@pwhitewick what about their (much smaller than today) livestock? Under siege, they'd still want to water the cattle (average 200kg) , sheep (30kg), goats, pigs (70kg), hens, surely? 1 and a half gallons per 45 kg by one estimate. What size herd would sustain a population of 300 people? The volume of water needed would go beyond rudimentary storage capacity.
@@CGM_68 Sieges were rare, and in the rare event they did happen, you weren't going to be able to save your livestock. You just had to eat them. So I wouldn't include sustaining the livestock for long periods of time in part of your siege calculations.
In the absence of data let's first do a guesstimate. Let's assume 150 animals on Beacon Hill, Hampshire, to establish a volume, we can then decide to half it, or double it as required. [1 gallon is 4.546092 litres]
50 cattle need 1,513 litres/day minimum.
40 pigs require 422 litres minimum.
Sheep are generally more frequent than goats throughout the period in a ratio of approximately 3 to 1.
30 sheep 136 litres
10 goats 45 litres
20 chickens 3 litres. That's just short of a total of 2,000 litres for each day of the siege. It would be a considerable effort to transport 1000s of litres of water to the top. Storage would be have to be evident in the archaeological record. Then consider the need for fire fighting, should the besiegers try to burn you out. Not much good if you dowse the flames with your drinking water. I guess loose earth could be used to smother the flames, since it's a difficult question, how much water would it take to dowse the flames on 15 huts.
In Australia many rural homes use water tanks that gather water from the rain that falls on the roof for drinking water. I can't help wondering if it could also have been as simple as basic roof gutters leading to barrels to collect water. If it works now in dry Australia, surely it'd work well in the UK. Nothing would exist in the archaeological record of such given stains in the ground show footings, but not the roof...but it is a very simple solution to the water issue.
Hmmm… their thatched roofs would have been different, but famously the English rain is far more frequent. Dew ponds collecting rainwater seem more likely than roofs.
Eaves troughs would be quite labor intensive, but possibly you could drain drip trenches down a back slope into a lined basin or cistern. Several round houses on a slight ridge might make it worthwhile?
The ditches going around the fort could act as drains to a water pit lined with clay. No shortage of rain in the UK.
like what the mayans did
Commenting immediately for the algorithm 🫡
Well thanks
I wonder if they thought about or had the ability to do rain water capture from the dwellings. If so this saves some of the trips down the hill to collect water.
We will never know as the tanks and gutters will have been wooden so rotted to nowt over the years.
I'm guessing this may have been a part of it as well. It's super common for fortresses to have rain-fed cisterns and very strict rules about not urinating/defecating inside the walls. Castillo San Cristóbal in San Juan, PR is one example of a (modern age) hill fort which has huge cisterns that collect water that fall from anywhere on top of the hill. They didn't allow pets inside the walls and indeed they would kill any stray cat they found inside the fortress, so as to not contaminate their drinking water.
And then also, as per his conclusion at the end, it's quite common to carry your drinking water from a nearby source, even right through to the modern age in many places in Africa. Also, African women tend to carry 20L of water in one trip (for up to 4 miles or more) when they're fetching water, so I have no doubt that men accustomed to it could carry quite a bit more still. Plus, let's not forget about draft animals, which they had.
And to add on, if the rain falling onto the top of the hill was naturally collecting anywhere as it fell down off the hill, either on the surface level or coming out of a spring on the side, you could collect it there too.
Along with your deduction, I am inclined to believe that they built catch basins an cisterns. And don't forget that >2000 years ago, they had much more regular rainfall. 😎
I've not been able to find a huge amount of data on the climate outside of water levels.
We would certainly be able to find evidence of basins and cisterns if they used it. Such things leave very clear marks for an archaeologist.
These hill forts are surrounded by long circular ditches. Have the archaeologists checked any of them for clay linings? Even the runoff from such a construction would be substantial and could be captured without going very far from the top.
Ha Ha! Midden, that's what my Mum used to call my Bedroom when I was a Teenager! 😂👍
How about Malvern. Great hill fort and Malvern water...
Could they maybe have used donkeys, mules or even sheep to help carry water?
Can confirm, if i'm taking friends or family hillforting doesn't take long for this exact question to come up
great episode!
Turns out that hill forts could draw millions of decalitres capable of supporting vast numbers, sire.
_Vast._
My nearaet hillfort had more than enough water as it was surrounded by the Fens.
Could you perhaps do a short video on dew ponds and the geology of wells? You hint at them and reasons why they'd work or not work a few times, but don't really go into detail. Dew ponds are such a feature of the downs it would be nice to know a bit more about them.
Would think that there were dew ponds somewhere on the top to catch rain and also morning dew.
Okay Paul, so next question would be : What did they use to carry the water? No plastic in those days (laugh's at self saying that...) and anything else would be heavy empty, let alone with 10L of water inside - if they could make something that big even. Troublesome! Thank you for another excellent video. Cheers, Warren :)
Animal skins, like what the Arabs use?
Skin bags similar to wine skins.
Domesticated horses were present in the British Isles from about 2000BC onwards. Animal hides could have been used to make waterskins. Sheep, goats. deer and boar skins would have done the job with domesticated horses to carry the full waterskins.
Animal bladders/skins were commonly used for this task. So too were clay pots, but those are quite a bit heavier.
Right on, several replies here suggest animal hide bladders etc and carried by domesticated horses. That might be possible I guess. :)
St Swithin - Rain / Dry ?!! (and Churches would have Holy Wells often)
more likley the wells would attract churches
Your videos are a little piece of magic Paul
Glad I subbed, this types of videos is exactly what I'm hill fort!
Awesome, thank you!
If you have livestock then you also have milk ??
They also need water
@@elbapo7 I agree , So they must have collected water and stored it some how, Don't forget this is the England lol
Occam's Razor is always a friend when uncovering seemingly unfathomable mysteries, and you worked it out, Paul.
Good question, that. Fundamental, really. There are existing dew-ponds at Badbury Rings. Is it possible that ‘sumps’ in the ditches could have served as rainwater reservoirs?
Why did Jack and Jill go up the hill if there wasn’t any water up there? 🤔😉
i'm pretty sure if in need they had ways to catch extra rainwater. these people were as smart and resourcefull as we are. greatly reducing the need to bring up water. thing is alot of these would be makeshift and not of long lasting materials and probably removed after use so the chance to find anything related to this are rather slim
Thank you Paul, yet again a well thought out video 😀
Each of your videos is a little piece of magic. Keep inspiring us with your creations!🍒🐕🎾
Thank you! Will do!
@@pwhitewickthat's another bot, Mr Whitewick
Paul, I think your water requirements conclusions are possibly unrealistic. Firstly 1.5 litres per person per day is only just enough water for the occupants to survive. But what about cooking? What about cleaning and maintenance, not just of themselves but also equipment? And the big one - what about livestock? A key element of a hill fort is that it is a fortification. It can resist a protracted siege over days, weeks or even months. The occupants must have had knowledge of how to extract water that is not available to us.
Thoughts on how... very welcome
@@pwhitewick I also lack knowledge about how to build pyramids, but I'm certain that's what ancient people did!
Where do the Cows drink?
Maybe they also had some sort of early water catchers? Remember, your country is famous for its... moist... weather.
Certainly for a good 8 month of the year, very true.
hello again Paul, as always it was a very interesting video, i really enjoyed it, well done and thank you 😊
Cheers Davie
Perhaps they relied on rainwater, and had a basic reservoir on the hilltop.
Sadly not much evidence of that.
Very good video again Paul I look forward to Sunday evening.
Thanks Leonard
I'm now subbed to your podcast, I hope it's as good as this.
Welcome aboard!
Keep up the great content!
Thanks, will do!
Brilliant and interesting video Paul and some nice views from those hillforts as well.
I can think of maybe 7 hillforts close to me in West Devon/East Cornwall, all bar one are close to a river. The one away from a river has a marsh area below it, which was probably a large pond at one time. I personally think there were many a varied assortment of water storage. Even Tintagel, pre medieval castle, had a well.
Another comment having watched the whole thing. I still think wells played a part. Water is only ever (here in the uk at least) never more than a few metres under foot. Dew ponds could help, that would probably the only way if cattle or other animals were involved. Also, hillfors must have been inhabited, you wouldnt go to all that trouble of building the defences for nothing 🤷
I really wish I had more evidence for wells. The issue really is the geology.
These are limestone and chalk hills. The rock is too porous to hold water. A well dug down to the water table would have to be extremely deep.
calculate the manhours required to build those embankments in order to judge the importance of those Hillforts
UUuuummm .. @ 13.20 Thats ok but it doesnt take livestock into consideration.. a cow alone needs at least 50 ltrs per day, with calf considerably more.
Another GREAT video tackling anotger mystery..maybe they had a mixture of dew ponds, water in the ditches and dug puts to collect rainwater. Maybe a video about dew ponds and visits to those? Great scenery. Thank you.😊😊😊😊
Dew ponds seems to be the answer if no wells have been found. The Egyptians might might have the answer at that time. Pyramid building would have been thirsty work.
Ox & cart. Cattle walk themselves to water while out grazing. Dew ponds and rain storage. If they can supply tons of wood to the site they can move water.
What about using animals to assist? Surely, oxen or mules/ponies could carry much more than a human? Probably only need three or four to supply and have excess per day, ( as long as stotage was OK, but probably end up being brewed to last longer and for safety).
Wouldn't the ditches capture rain water. As England was weter back then the water would fill up the ditches
If the hillforts were only occupied part-time accumulated rainwater might be sufficient, if lined pools had been prepared. Don't forget the ancient Britons had horses and chariots and probably wagons and carts (the Gauls definitely did) which would make carrying water much easier.
I've always thought the hillforts would be a pretty bleak place to spend the winter, exposed to all the weather. Surely, no-one would want to occupy one in January unless they absolutely had to!
Taking apart of the era any ability to completely prevent movement in and out is probably impossible. Plus if you are moving there due to hostile intent you take it with you , enough for a few days. Then back to local knowledge, how to get out and bring back water. Finally, build houses, collect the run off from roofs.
They would have had animals, right? Sureley they would use those for carrying larger quanteties?
My instinct was a "cistern" for catching rain water. I looked up "dew pond" and the Wikipedia entry had some interesting things to say that caught my eye like the "chalk puddle" used to make one. Where my father grew up every house had a cistern and many of these dew ponds of every size are dotted about- primarily for livestock.
Aren't we forgetting the most obvious? It's England, it's most famous for RAIN. they could collect rain water to safe on a trip to the stream/well.
Scarborough Castle, on a seaside clifftop hill, between 200-300 feet high, was occupied, as a Hill fort from at least as far back as the Iron Age, in the 4th century AD there was a Roman Signal Station on the edge of the cliff, & in the Medieval period a mighty stone Castle. The Iron Age site included a number of bottle shape storage pits for grain, with various artifacts in their fills proving domestic occupation. Right in the heart of this area, and beside the Roman station there is a stone lined well, which served the Priest's house attached to the remains of a chapel built into the remains of the Roman structure, before the Norman conquest, which continued to serve the Castle through the Medieval period. At the heart of the Castle, near the 12th century Keep, & some distance from the Roman & Iron Age finds there is a well, some 170 feet deep, & stone lined for nearly half this distance from the top down. This still contains water, somewhere way down in the bottom, out of sight from the top without a light. The point is that your mention of the impossibility of making a well to reach water at a hill fort is pertinent to the Scarborough situation, because the rock that forms the hilltop on which Scarborough Castle, & former Hill fort stands is composed of thick layers of limestone on top of sandstone, underneath which are further layers of shale & other rocks, all exposed in the surrounding cliff faces. Yet there clearly were wells on the site, likely from an early date, which therefore included the period of the occupation as a hill fort. Certainly the Romans would have used the well by their station. That is interesting, because if the well had Roman origins associated with the tower one would have expected it to have been within the safety of the circuit of wall built to protect the tower. That it was not suggests that it already existed before the Romans used the site, or that it was not built until a later period, presumably therefore when the chapel was constructed. However it is very close to the priest house foundations, & may have been overridden by them, & the fact that there was a well nearby in the castle would seem to make the need for another at the chapel unnecessary, therefore an earlier, Iron Age, date is more likely. Interestingly, at a much later period, when the Castle received a considerable Garrison following the Jacobite rising of 1745, the water of the well by the chapel was diverted into a large, brick vaulted semi underground chamber, constructed in the Roman fort ditch, in which a large cistern was constructed to collect them, along with a major part of any rainwater that fell on the hilltop, via a series of drains made right across the site. This cistern still holds water today. So a large hilltop can be supplied with water, via similar drain/collection systems, or by the digging of wells, & as well as the collection from roofs etc, & at a push, by human or animal carriage. In just the same way the large amount of grain for which the 'silos' at Scarborough were dug was fair more than could have been grown on the site, even in the remaining 16 acres or so of ground available, though there may have been a bit more at earlier times, but still not much more. This grain then will have had to have been carried uphill also to the site, in considerable quantities. As with grain then so with water, if needed, by either human or animal carriage. At the height of a siege during the English Civil War, a shortage of water for the large garrison of some 700
soldiers, with some horses, cattle, & womenfolk, servants etc within the Castle, men had to resort to a fresh water spring at the base of the cliff to fetch water into the castle, under gunfire from enemy ships etc. so bringing it up the cliffs was possible, if not normal outside of an emergency.
One sees video of women and children in Africa carrying 20 or 25 litre canisters of water. Say you were using hide containers, would the container itself weigh 10kg when wet? Then carrying 10 or 15 litres of water becomes easily possible for people who are used to carrying weights.
Hi Paul, excellent video. One thought that occurs to me is that perhaps they never resolved this problem and were only able to sustain life high up during periods when they could collect enough water.
As an aside a short while ago I saw a report showing how water was being harvested from the clouds high up in the Andes in nets which were then collected the condensation and channeled it down the mountainside to where it was needed.
All the best!!
The ladies carried the water up the hill in buckets on yokes which could hold 2 buckets, they likely had several women doing this. No mystery here!
People used to walk further, even today, in some places, you still see people walking miles for water. That said, if there was any way of getting any water nearer & easier, they would have used it.
Nothing moved that was heavy without mules or draught animals. Climate was probably warmer and wetter too. Mild beer was the safest thing to drink anywhere, and several pints drunk breakfast, lunch, and tea, was pretty normal.
Hillforts are like little floating Islands in land mostly under water
The water level has dropped massively since when they were first used
If you put the correct water level in you would have to swim down
You often find water on or near the tops of hills. At least in my experience anyway! They would never have built a settlement without a nearby water source. Perhaps they were really good rainwater engineers?
There are examples of handmade wells with deep shafts cladded with wood or rocks.
How often did it rain there in the iron age? Capturing water is a common thing with civilization. The old water barrel thing.
Never mind the water - what about the waste (Masada and similar in MEast ended up with what went out contaminating what was rising up/being stored)
Obviously they caught rainwater. It is a no-brainer.
Wherever there is an old church there is a significance.
winchers borne so you know my hil fort
Wind pumps similar to spain?
artesian well
dew ponds
Sidbury Hill fort near Tidworth has a dew pond that is still there. At least it was when I was a kid in the sixties.
Tried to get there the other day. Too many tanks around
Hi paul i just had an idea on the water problem for hill fort wouldn t it be possible for the people to clay line all the ditches around it and when it rained the ditches would fill up over over time then at least could use that for the livestock
Clay in itself would be a start, but I think you need to mix it with a gravel too... think Navvies and Canals. I would mean, knowledge of that, knowledge of its location... but in principle yes. The only issue... lack of any archaeological evidence.
Well what if they had gravy, then they wouldn't even need water would they. No one's even ever thought of that 😡😡
VERY good point. We all need gravy
@@pwhitewick Yes! Now you're thinking out of the box 😄
any rain catching ideas? You would need some way to store it so I guess we would be able to find those?
At certain times of the year, yup.
The climate was cooler 2000 years ago there would have been more rain, rain collection and wells.
Archeology could find water retention ponds, and wells.
I think dew ponds have a much better chance than wells. Mostly here we are limestone and chalk.
@@pwhitewick wooden structures could have existed and of course would have vanished.
More stuff like this :)
on it!
all praise Al Gore Rythme
....and all he bringuth
Paused it at 1 minute just to say, has nobody ever heard of wells before?? 🤷
Haha... it was set to be sunny. Honest
Well said.
dew ponds ??
Almost
@@pwhitewick what is one ? lol
@@pwhitewick ah like the two up harting down surrounded by thick brambles n fenced off utterly undrinkable lol let alone getting to either of em
Many do not know of why springs appear towards the tops of hills, for them only to then pour down the hills under gravity.
I live in North Holloway in London and in the vicinity of an old Roman Fort, with its location being due to it being one of the rise points of the old Hackney Brook and which used to run through Highbury Vale.
But why do springs defy gravity and start towards the tops of hills, as they break the surface? Well this is where science must be revaluated and with the earth's electrical field being seen to be coming into play. With the force of electromagnetism being 10^39 or, 1000 billion billion billion billion times more powerful than gravity.
Plus at other times both the electrical environment would have changed and with spring points moving due to unground movement in the landscape. When a estate garden in Totteridge, I checked with the local vicar's old map and which showed some different springs points to be in different places locally and to where one had appeared in the garden. With the changes mainly happening after the big long summer heatwave of '76.
First.
Second.
So what, are you a four year old wanting a medal? 😂
The rest of us are actually watching another great video from Paul, rather than worrying about being first to comment only.
Were the moat clay lined? That could collect rainwater
Nope. I tried to find evidence of this, but cannot find any
@@pwhitewick Thanks Paul
Here in Wales the answer is simple. Simply place pots, pits and other containers outside and wait a few minutes for the rain! Job done!
Seriously most hillforts hereabout have streams or ponds onsite or very close nearby. In other parts of the world, indigenous folk are more than used to carrying water some distance if neccesary, in containers back home. This is common and only folk today who are used to obtaining water, cleaned and out of the tap on order, will have any trouble imagining our prehistoric ancestors mindset and fortitude simply doing what needs to be done day by day to live. We musn't make the mistake of judging our ancestors ability and creativity, based on our own very limited abilities.
If you're reading this, you must watch the video! It's something amazing that's worth every minute of your time. ⏰✨🍑🍑🍑 : ♀️,
Oh no, not another bot 😢
Thank you for your hard work and dedication. Your videos are always a joy to watch.🎮🐠🏒
Thank you.
@@pwhitewick You do realise such comments are from spam bots right?