Slate Hill Settlement
Slate Hill Settlement is an archaeological site in Northumberland, England, near the village of Bolam and about west of Morpeth. The site, a defended settlement dating from the Iron Age, is a scheduled monument. Description. On Slate Hill there are four concentric ramparts, terraced on the sloping hillside, in a semicircle forming on the north and west sides of an enclosure; quarrying has affected the east side where one rampart remains. The ramparts, of stone and earth, are about wide and high. On the south side a steep slope provides defence. The enclosure within the defences is  about west to east and north to south. A break in the west side is thought to be an original entrance. The site is regarded as an example of a type of defended settlement of the 7th to 5th centuries BC in the northern uplands of what is now England, sometimes located on hilltops. Within the enclosure there would be a number of stone or timber roundhouses for the inhabitants, probably a single family group, and perhaps space to keep livestock in winter.