A cemetery discovered during archaeological excavations in 1962 indicated that a community lived nearby, perhaps in a fortified burh. Its exceptional size hints that it might have had a royal patron – Godwin, Earl of Wessex (r.1020–53), father of King Harold (r.1066), is one possibility. The church of St Mary in Castro dates to around AD 1000. The pharos was later reused for the church of St Mary in Castro as a chapel and bell tower, and can still be seen. The fort at Dubris was demolished around AD 215 and a new one constructed around AD 270, which may have continued in use, along with the lighthouses, into the 5th century. These lighthouses supported fire beacons to act as navigation lights for ships approaching the narrow river mouth, enabling them to find a quayside outside the fort. The Romans built an octagonal tower-like lighthouse ( pharos) on Castle Hill around the same time, with another on the opposite hill, the Western Heights. Though building stopped suddenly, it began again around AD 130 and the fort was completed. This was Dubris, a fort for the classis Britannica, a Roman fleet that patrolled the eastern Channel. Seventy years after the Roman invasion in AD 43, construction of a fort began at the mouth of the river Dour.

Slight evidence of occupation in the 1st century BC was found during excavations in 1962, near the castle church of St Mary in Castro. In southern England, hillforts were built from about 500 BC until the Roman invasion, variously as places of permanent habitation or of refuge.

The irregular shape and massive enclosed area of the castle earthworks are not typically medieval, more closely resembling a hillfort. The origin of settlement on Castle Hill, where Dover Castle stands, may be in the pre-Roman Iron Age. Iron Age hillfort, Roman lighthouse, Anglo-Saxon church

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