English: Ancient hill-fort on Carman Hill. This is one of several groups of boulders lying within the remains of an ancient hill-fort at this site. This south-facing location near the summit of the hill commands an excellent view over much of the valley of the River Leven, as well as to the River Clyde and beyond; for an impression of what can be seen from the fort, see: 1083407.

This site has occasionally been described as being one of several Iron Age hill-forts in this area; however, opinion in recent years has favoured a later period of occupation in the Early Medieval Period (colloquially, the Dark Ages).

For most people who climb the hill, the groups of boulders are the "fort"; however, there is much more to see than that. The surviving remains are quite extensive, and, with some care, they are not too hard to pick out; see 1348609 for a series of ten linked items showing various parts of the remains (these items include satellite views, with interpretations showing how they relate to what can be seen on the ground).

Favouring the later period of occupation, the book "Archaeology Around Glasgow" (2007; Susan Hothersall) says: "The hillfort on Carman Muir is one of the largest in western Scotland. It was identified from aerial photographs as recently as 1954. Carman fort consists of a small enclosed area surrounded by a large outer enclosure. This type of 'citadel fort' is typical of the early medieval period, and Leslie and Elizabeth Alcock, who excavated at Dumbarton Rock, suggested that Carman may have been the immediate precursor of the royal seat at Dumbarton, commanding much the same territory." The same work notes that the site had (at the time of writing) never been excavated.

The RCAHMS database (Canmore) also favours the later period of occupation, describing the site as a "Citadel Fort of Dark Age type C measuring 150 yards in diameter, with stone ramparts, ditches, and sunken approach roads".

A people called the Damnonii (see below) were recorded as inhabiting this area at approximately the time of the Roman occupation of southern Scotland. The Strathclyde Britons (possibly descendants of the Damnonii) who later occupied this district had their kingdom centred on a rock which was given the British name "Al Clud", "the rock of the Clyde", later Gaelicized to "Dùn Breatann", the "fort of the Britons", which is now known as Dumbarton Rock.

The Carman hill-fort site is given statutory protection under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979.

For other sites of archaeological interest nearby, see 1586472 and 697566. In addition, at the foot of Carman Hill, there are also the remains of a cattle enclosure that was in use until the last decade of the nineteenth century, and the ruins of a twentieth-century house that was built on the same site: 1043828.

Related topics:

"Mount Mallow": this a name which is sometimes used locally for this hill, and which seems only to have survived in oral tradition, rather than appearing on any maps; see 1230346 and 1050247.

"The Damnonii": this name is known only from Ptolemy's "Geography", which was written in the second century A.D. They are thought to have been a British rather than a Gaelic people; in other words, they spoke a P-Celtic language, one that was more akin to early Welsh than to Scottish Gaelic or Irish (which are Q-Celtic languages). The name Carman itself is thought to be a British name, incorporating the elements "cair" (fort) and "main" (stone); cf. Welsh "caer" and "maen". A similarly-named people, the Dumnonii, inhabited south-west England; their name gave rise to the modern name "Devon".