Stesser Burg, German mountain

Stesser Burg is a hillfort with circular earthworks atop a wooded hill overlooking the Ruhr valley in Meschede. The site features outer walls surrounding approximately two hectares, with smaller terraces and internal walls showing signs of multiple construction phases and varied uses over time.

The rampart was long thought medieval, but 2014 detector surveys by the LWL-Archäologie für Westfalen dated its first phase to the late Iron Age: a plastically decorated arm-ring fragment matches finds from Burg Borghausen and the Dünsberg, placing construction in the 3rd century BC (La Tène B2/C1). A pale-gold three-swirl stater of the Bochum type (Roymans var. a) points to occupation into the mid-1st century BC. A gold equal-arm fibula and a gold Merovingian tremissis mark a phase around 700 AD, and pottery spans the 10th to 14th centuries. The site entered Meschede's monument list in 1984.

The name Stesser Burg comes from the villages of Stesse and Calle in the Kelbke valley below the hill. The site lies in the 160.7-hectare Ruhrtal bei Laer nature reserve, mostly covered by red beech forest. Visitors today see the 2.4-hectare ring wall around the summit and the four internal walls dividing the interior.

The walled summit lies north of Stesse and Calle above the Kelbke valley, within the 160.7-hectare Ruhrtal bei Laer nature reserve. The site has no excavated gateways; recent terrain models point to a possible western entrance at today's path, with cuts in the wall to the north and east suggesting others. The outer rampart encloses the whole 2.4-hectare hilltop, with terraces, walls and ditches on the southern half.

Detector surveys in 2014 identified the site as originally late Iron Age. A plastically decorated arm-ring fragment, paralleled at Burg Borghausen and the Dünsberg, dates to the 3rd century BC (Lt B2/C1), and a pale-gold three-swirl stater of the Bochum type (Roymans a) to the mid-1st century BC, suggesting at least two centuries of La Tène occupation.