Seeing Beyond the Site

Settlement and Landscape in Later Prehistoric Ireland – Seeing beyond the site

Heritage Council INSTAR funding awarded to research consortium led by UCC

Excavations over the last two decades or so have fundamentally altered the state of knowledge about the Bronze and Iron Age in Ireland. Many sites have started to reveal evidence for people’s lifeways in the period between 1200BD-AD400 and at times dramatic changes and shifts between regions and periods. The challenge is now to understand the economic basis of these societies and to identify agricultural and landuse strategies.

The INSTAR funded project Settlement and Landscape in Later Prehistoric Ireland – Seeing beyond the site aims to contextualise the archaeology of the Late Bronze and Iron Ages within its contemporary prehistoric landscape. The research team is multidisciplinary, multisectoral and international: archaeologists and paleoenvironmentalists from UCC (Katharina Becker, Ben Gearey, Caitlin Nagle), University of Bradford (Ian Armit), the private sector (Meriel McClatchie) and Transport Infrastructure Ireland, formerly the National Roads Authority (James Eogan). Information about our Open Lab during Heritage Week and project updates will be posted on the UCC archaeology website.

Follow the project on Twitter @Beyond_the_site

‌‌

Photos (clockwise from left): Dr Ben Gearey during coring in Co Waterford; Moneylawn Lower, Co. Wexford (E3478), reconstruction by Dave Pollock and Katharina Becker based on original site plans and photographs by Liam McKinstry, Valerie J Keeley Ltd; Charred plant remains from Neolithic deposits at Kerloge, Co. Wexford, (l) hazelnut shell fragments, (r) possible emmer wheat grains (image: Meriel McClatchie); extracted holocene core 

‌