Over het onstaan van motte- kastelen is ook op deze site e.e.a. gezegd.
Op Wikipedia lezen we o.a:

"Deze versterkingsvorm wordt traditioneel een ontstaan toegedicht ergens aan het eind van de 10e eeuw, in de gebieden tussen de Rijn en de Loire. De oudste afbeelding van een mottekasteel vinden we op het 11e-eeuwse Tapijt van Bayeux.

Vreemd is het wel dat elders er al veel vroeger (rond 600) sprake is van dergelijke defensieve constructies: onderstaande van "Medievalists.net " overgenomen passage is daar duidelijk over:
(Trusty Hill is een locatie in Zuid- Schotland).

‘What drew us to Trusty’s Hill were Pictish symbols carved on to bedrock here, which are unique in this region and far to the south of where Pictish carvings are normally found,’ said Ronan Toolis of GUARD Archaeology, who led the excavation which involved the participation of over 60 volunteers. ‘The Galloway Picts Project was launched in 2012 to recover evidence for the archaeological context of these carvings but far from validating the existence of ‘Galloway Picts’, the archaeological context revealed by our excavation instead suggests the carvings relate to a royal stronghold and place of inauguration for the local Britons of Galloway around AD 600. Examined in the context of contemporary sites across Scotland and northern England, the archaeological evidence suggests that Galloway may have been the heart of the lost Dark Age kingdom of Rheged, a kingdom that was in the late sixth century pre-eminent amongst the kingdoms of the north.’
The excavation revealed in the decades around AD 600, the summit of the hill was fortified with a timber-laced stone rampart. Around the same time supplementary defences and enclosures were added to its lower-lying slopes transforming Trusty’s Hill into a nucleated fort, a type of fort in Scotland that has been recognised by archaeologists as high status settlements of the early medieval period.