Experts discovered a large settlement in Co Wicklow, which is believed to have been built 2,000 years before the Vikings came to Ireland.
The discovery of a large hilltop settlement in Ireland’s ancient east could challenge the prevailing theory that the Vikings were the first to build towns in Ireland.
The discovery of a large hilltop settlement in Ireland’s ancient east could challenge the prevailing theory that the Vikings were the first to build towns in Ireland.
Brusselstown Ring, a prehistoric hillfort in Co Wicklow, Ireland, was discovered by Dr Dirk Brandherm and his colleagues. The crew identified more than 600 suspected house platforms within the site.
The discovery provided compelling evidence of a densely populated community dating back to the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age in Ireland. The ancient settlement is believed to be the largest nucleated settlement ever discovered in the entirety of prehistoric Britain and Ireland.
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It also challenges some previously held beliefs about Ireland’s first towns and who built them. Experts believed the site emerged around 1200 BC, which would be in the Late Bronze Age. It is located within a region known as the Baltinglass Hillfort Cluster, on the southwestern edge of the Wicklow Mountains.
Brusselstown Ring is one of 13 hilltop enclosures spread across the mountain range. Structures there have been dated back to the Neolithic period and the Early Bronze Age.
Four test excavations revealed evidence of Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age occupation
The study, led by Dr Brandherm, was published within Antiquity, a peer-reviewed journal of world archaeology. It stated, “Given its exceptional size, density of occupation and architectural complexity, Brusselstown Ring represents a unique case within both the Baltinglass hillfort cluster and more widely within the Atlantic Archipelago.”
Survey work at the site has been conducted over the past two decades, but researchers believed critical questions about “the date, development and function of both the enclosing elements and the internal settlement remain unanswered.” As a result, test excavations were conducted in 2024.
The evidence found there indicated that they were occupied mainly during the Late Bronze Age, with some house platforms continuing to be used or reused in the Early Iron Age.
“This makes Brusselstown Ring the largest nucleated settlement agglomeration by far in prehistoric Ireland and Britain,” the study highlighted. According to Dr. Brandherm, the site is significant due to the “large number and the concentration of roundhouses” in one spot.
More than 600 suspected house platforms were discovered at Brusselstown Ring hillfort
Previously, archaeologists believed that during the Bronze Age in Ireland, towns were absent, and settlements typically consisted of one to five dwellings. Brusseltown Ring challenges that idea, and the previously held notion that the Vikings were responsible for building Ireland’s first towns.
“Because if you’ve got more than 600 roundhouses, and potentially a large stone-built cistern, that’s no longer a village,” Dr. Brandherm told BBC News. “We’re talking a proto-town of sorts, and that’s 2000 years before the Vikings.”
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