Kriveikiškis Hillfort

Below it the list of hillforts in Lithuania. The first three volumes of the atlas of Lithuanian hillforts (Lietuvos piliakalniai. Atlasas, eds. Z. Baubonis ir G. Zabiela, Vilnius, 2005, vol. I–III) contained 829 entries. The 4th volume (2017) contained additional 92 entries. Most of the latter ones were identified after 2005, but some of the sites were known earlier, and only recently they were classified as hillforts. At the end of vol. 4 there is a list of hillforts grouped by districts and municipalities. As of 2005 only 184 of them were excavated to various extents. To date, a total of 1,008 hillforts have been identified in Lithuania. "Hillfort" is piliakalnis in Lithianian. The word literally means "castle mound" and refers to wooden castles that stood on tops of these mounds. Since 14th century, with the appearance of brick and stone castles, the wooden ones were abandoned and decayed, and today the root "pilis" in "piliakalnis" refers to a castle only etymologically. In modern times, about one and half thousand places are called piliakalnis, not all of them are real hillforts (defined as elements of terrain with external earth fortifications of closed type with traces of the activity of ancient people within). A number of similar-looking objects are not hillforts in the archaeological sense, but rather temporary field fortifications, remnants of fortified manors, etc., dated by XVI-XVII centuries. Detailed information about Lithuanian hillforts is collected at the website Lietuvos Piliakalniai ("Lithuanian Hillforts"), a virtual database maintained by the Cultural Heritage Preservation Force. The database can be browsed by districts and its texts are searchable. The information about the protection status of hillforts and further references can be found in the overall Lithuanian Register of Cultural Heritage.