US EditionIreland's Largest Prehistoric Settlement Uncovered in Wicklow
Over 600 roundhouse platforms at Brusselstown Ring suggest a densely populated, permanent Late Bronze and Early Iron Age settlement, the largest in prehistoric Ireland and Britain.
- Brusselstown Ring researchers reported more than 600 suspected house platforms and an enclosure spanning more than 40 hectares with two widely spaced ramparts.
- Reanalysing aerial imagery and airborne photogrammetry revealed over 600 microtopographical anomalies, and 2024 test excavations obtained radiocarbon dates placing occupation in the Late Bronze Age between 1210 and 780 BC.
- Targeted 1.5m test trenches revealed cobbled floors, hearths, stake holes and pit fills, while excavation trenches sampled roundhouse platform diameters of 6 m, 7 m, 8 m, and 12 m.
- The discovery suggests the boat-shaped stone-lined chamber could be the first known cistern in an Irish hillfort, and it questions the idea that the first towns on the island of Ireland were founded by the Vikings.
- Further samples in the coming months will determine whether the cistern dates to the same period as the roundhouses, while future work will establish enclosure chronology and social differentiation.
13 Articles
13 Articles
Archaeologists Uncover the Largest Prehistoric Village in Britain and Ireland
Aerial photograph with indication of test-trench locations. Credit: Dirk Brandherm / CC BY 4.0 Archaeologists have identified what may be the largest clustered village in prehistoric Britain and Ireland, with evidence pointing to more than 600 ancient homes built into a hillfort landscape in County Wicklow, Ireland. The discovery significantly surpasses previous finds and sheds new light on settlement patterns during the late Bronze Age and earl…
Large Hillfort Settlement Identified in Ireland
COUNTY WICKLOW, IRELAND—More than 600 possible dwelling platforms and a cistern have been identified at Ireland’s Brusselstown Ring hillfort by Dirk Brandherm of Queen’s University Belfast and his colleagues, according to a Phys.org report. The site, one of the 13 large enclosures in the Baltinglass hillfort cluster in eastern Ireland, is thought to have been occupied during the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age, between about 1193 and 410 B.C.…
Archaeologists have discovered the largest prehistoric settlement in Great Britain and Ireland south of Dublin, and the findings could rewrite the history of the settlement in northwestern Europe.
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