Danebury is a hilltop amid the rolling chalk downland of northern Hampshire, and, like many such hills in Wessex, it is crowned by the banks and ditches of a prehistoric settlement. Danebury is no larger, no better preserved than dozens of such hillforts in southern Britain (Fig. 1.1). What makes it different from others is that it has been excavated, thoroughly if not completely, using the most up-to-date archaeological techniques. The result is that we know a very great deal about the people who cut the ditches, built the ramparts, and erected their huts within the security which they offered. We can handle the tools they used; we can walk the fields they cultivated; we can, up to a point, understand how they tilled the land and evaluate their food supply. In short, archaeology reveals much of the material culture of these distant people.

But there is much that the excavation of Danebury does not tell us, and there are many subjects that are only faintly illuminated. We know little of the social structure of its inhabitants, and almost nothing of their customs, cults and religious beliefs.