Page "Maiden Castle, Dorset" Paragraph 7

Within a period of about 50 years, a bank barrow was built over the enclosure.

It was a long mound of earth with a ditch on either side ; the parallel ditches were apart.

Many barrows lie over graves and are monuments to the deceased, but as the barrow at Maiden Castle did not cover any burials, it has been suggested that it was a boundary marker, which would explain the limited human activity on the hilltop for the 500 years after the bank barrow's construction.

Around 1, 800 BC, during the early Bronze Age, the hill was cleared and used to grow crops, but the soil was quickly exhausted and the site abandoned.

This period of abandonment lasted until the Iron Age, when the hill fort was built.

The bank barrow survived into the Iron Age as a low mound, and throughout this period construction over it was avoided.