Thanks to new technology, researchers have identified over a thousand hillforts in Lithuania, artificial mounds used for fortifications since the Bronze Age until the late Middle Ages. Even researchers themselves were surprised how many there are.
Hillfort researchers are rushing to see a new find within the boundaries of the village of Prystovai, in the Western Kretinga District. It is the 998th hillfort identified in the country.
“Finding a new hillfort is no easy matter, many of them were known 100 years ago,” says Gintautas Zabiela, senior researcher at Klaipėda University.
This is why the potential new finds are usually covered with vegetation and hard to distinguish from their surroundings.
After analysing documents and maps, interviewing local people and using new technology, Lithuanian researchers have been able to identify a number of new hillforts, earthworks used as fortification. The total number has now exceeded one thousand.
“We are trying to spot particular features of hillforts: be it a rampart, a ditch, steeper slopes, terraces, flattened tops. And then you go to the site, visit the object and research it,” says Edvardas Naujalis, a medical doctor and hillfort researcher.
Researchers say that usually only one in four potential sites that they visit prove to be a real hillfort.
“The new hillforts that have been found [...] and many others have been severely disturbed and destroyed over the centuries [...] but they are very important from a scientific point of view,” says Jurgita Viršilienė, chief specialist of the Department of Cultural Heritage.
Researchers were themselves surprised how many there are in Lithuania. The thousandth one was found in Raseiniai District, in the village of Petkiškės.
“We have found the thousandth hillfort in Lithuania, which is something so incredible, because when we started to go around 20 years ago to register them, the number had just passed 900,” says Zabiela.
These hillforts date back some 2,500 years. They were used to build fortifications and protect wooden castles. In the Middle Ages, hillforts played a crucial role in defending the lands from the attacks of the Teutonic knights.
“They’d choose a site that was already naturally defensible, usually on river banks, and would dig a defensive ditch from the upland side, and then pour the earth from the ditch into a rampart, thus forming a place that was less accessible to the enemy,” explains Zenonas Baubonis, a heritage expert.
Naujalis, the doctor from Druskininkai who studies hillforts as a hobby, discovered one in his own town.
“There was an object near the river that had features of a hillfort, so we went there with experts, checked it out, and indeed here it was: several ditches and two embankments,” says Naujalis.
Once a new hillfort is discovered and registered by heritage authorities, it is cleared of bushes and adapted for visitors with information stands and walking trails.
There are currently 1,003 confirmed hillforts in Lithuania.
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