The first building placed at Dinas Brân was not the castle which now stands in ruins on top of the hill but an Iron Age hillfort built around 600 BC. An earthen rampart was constructed probably topped by a wooden palisade and this was further protected by a deep ditch on the shallower southern slope. The walls of the hill fort encircled a village of roundhouses. Dinas Brân is one of many hill forts in this part of Wales; Moel y Gaer is just a couple of miles to the north-west near the Horseshoe Pass, and another is close by at Y Gardden in Ruabon to the east. There are many others on the Clwydian Hills further to the north and in the Marches to the south.(Kightly, 2003)