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ireland Iron Age

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Ireland’s Invisible People

Comparing Ireland with the fast growing ‘tiger’ economies of the Far East, economists coined the term ‘Celtic Tiger’; the irony is that evidence for ‘Celtic’ Ireland is almost as rare as evidence for an indigenous species of Irish tiger. Has a decade of development-led excavations altered this picture? Brendon Wilkins assesses the new evidence emerging for the Irish Iron Age.

the Celtic present meets the Celtic past

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name of God,’ he began, ‘and of the dead genera-tions from which she receives her old tradition of nationhood, Ireland, through us, summons her children to her flag and strikes for her freedom.’ A line can be drawn between those bullet holes and the development and implementation of some of the strongest and most enviable national monu-ments legislation in the world.

Rising majestically above Dublin’s busiest street, the Georgian façade of the General Post Office still contains bullet holes – grim reminders of Easter Monday 1916, when Padraic Pearse read a decla-

ration that signalled the start of the Easter Rising and the beginning of Irish Independence. ‘In the

aBove Mid-excavation aerial view of the site at Rahally, from the south-east.

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but we cannot see them,’ he wrote. ‘Thus we may truly describe them as the invisible people.’

Archaeologists throughout the world will rec-ognise this conundrum: does absence of evidence equal evidence of absence? Are Iron Age people ‘invisible’ because Ireland was plunged into a Dark Age of economic and cultural stagnation? Or are Iron Age people ‘invisible’ because our excavation strategies have hitherto been ineffec-tive? As the Celtic Tiger boomed, archaeologists were presented with a once in a lifetime oppor-tunity to finally find Pearse’s dead generations.

Changing times, changing fortunes

Perhaps it was his long years as a dairy farmer that honed Gerry Mullins’s acute archaeological sen-sitivity to changes in landscape. As the machine bucket exposed yet another ditch crossing the road corridor, the excavation director was quick to notice what a field walking team, desk study and geophysical survey had failed to discover. Employed by Cultural Resource Development Services (CRDS Ltd) to undertake test excava-tions on the N6 Galway to East Balinasloe Road Scheme, Mullins recognised that a series of four concentric ditches cut into the flanks of Rahally hill were the remnants of one of the largest hill-forts ever discovered in Ireland.

Irish hillforts date to the Late Bronze Age, but were occupied for many centuries after, poten-tially shedding light on the nature of society in Late Prehistoric Ireland. The number of known hillforts in Ireland has increased dramatically in recent years (from estimates of 40 in 1972 to

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The National Monuments Act was enacted in 1930, when the nascent state was grasping a new identity, independent of its former colonial master. If the last 700 years could be dismissed as enslavement to the English garrison, then archaeology could be called upon to reveal a Gaelic Ireland that was fully free. But, as archae-ology matured into a professional discipline focussed on the scientific recovery of information about the past, evidence for the native ‘Celtic’ Ire-land, glorified in art and literature, was far from forthcoming.

The Irish Iron Age is represented by a handful of high profile ‘royal’ sites, occasional deposits of metalwork and an oral tradition of epic sagas. The late Barry Raftery argued in his seminal 1994 book, Pagan Celtic Ireland, that these scant remains were the trappings of a small aristocratic elite, shedding little light on how the majority of the population had lived. ‘These people existed

aBove Aerial view of Rahally, showing the projected outline of the hillfort ditches.

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dead generationsDebates concerning ‘unRoman Britain’ should look across the Irish

Sea. Ireland was never brought under Roman control, which means

the country missed out on the gift of a coherent network of long

straight roads. The Gaelic for road is bothar, literally translated

as ‘cow-path,’ a word that gives some insight into the ineffective

transport network that Ireland inherited at the beginning of

the Celtic Tiger boom. With no ‘top-down’ reorganisation of the

landscape, Ireland maintained a dispersed rural population long

into the Early Medieval period. There were no major urban centres

until the Vikings arrived, and without the driving thrust of Roman

industrial pottery production, Irish sites are largely ceramic-free

from the later Prehistoric until the later Medieval periods. Without

the conventional bookmarks of 43 AD and 410 AD, archaeologists

have developed a different chronology, based on radiocarbon, that

better reflects the duration of Irish time periods, which retain the

same nomenclature as Britain.

Britain8000BC 4000BC 2500BC 700BC 43BC AD410 AD1066

ireland

Anglo-Saxon Medieval

Early Medieval Late Medieval Anglo-NormanMesolithic Neolithic Bronze

Age Iron Age

AD400 AD850 1150

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approximately 90 in 2007), but only a

small number have been excavated. As a

consequence, questions concerning the func-

tion of these sites abound – with interpretations ranging from military, industrial or ritual centres, occupied by either a large population, or a minority of high status families. With so many unanswered questions, hopes were high for the excavation team as they prepared to excavate the entire road corridor as it traversed the hill at Rahally.

Located in east County Galway near the vil-lage of New Inn, the site at Rahally was on a north-facing hillside, which formed part of a gla-cial ridge surrounded by pastureland as well as wet pasture and bog areas. East Galway is known to have a complex archaeological landscape, and there were several features already identified in the vicinity of the proposed road corridor prior to the discovery of the hillfort, including a bival-late (double-ditched) ringfort immediately to the south.

The hillfort was the earliest, and largest, archae-ological monument discovered at Rahally during the road scheme excavations. Four concentric rings were identified, including an outer double-ditch and two inner single-ditches, all extending beyond the road corridor. The distance between the outer double-ditches was about 450m, which enclosed an area of 14.4ha. The ditches were up to 4m wide and 1.5m in depth, with the outer-most and innermost ditches being more substan-tial than the middle. No upstanding evidence of the banks was found in situ; however, banks were indicated by the presence of sediment that had slumped into the ditches, as well as many large stones that were likely used as revetments.

On the northern edge of the inner ditch, at the base of the hill, the fort builders had incorpo-rated a natural wet, marshy area rather than cut-ting the normal U-shaped ditch. A late La Tene (500 BC-100 AD) metal artefact, of unknown function, was found in this wet area. As the only prehistoric metal object found on the site, it may be significant that it was found in a wet context,

given the well-known prac-tice of deposition in watery

places associated with Iron Age ritual. Other finds at the site included a damaged polished axehead and Late Bronze Age pottery sherds from the inner ditch fills, and a dam-aged bone needle and whetstone from the outer double-ditches. Charcoal samples have returned radiocarbon dates of 994-827 BC for the inner ditch, whilst the outer double-ditch and middle ditch have been dated to 790-527 BC and 1090-900 BC respectively.

For a site the size of the Rahally hillfort, espe-cially as it was previously unknown and unex-plored, one would expect a wealth of finds, documenting the lives, interests and functions of the community that built it and made it their home. As there have been so few excavations of hillforts in Ireland, this site was expected to pro-vide a wealth of information; it is notable in

BeloW Late La Tene period metal artefact, of unknown function, recovered from the marshy area of the inner ditch.

BeloW A Neolithic trackway at Edercloon; note the accumulated depth of peat overlying this level of the bog.

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the absence of this expected evidence. Rahally occupies a commanding position, making good use of natural topography, but the vast empty space inside the hillfort brings us no closer to understanding who built it, or why it was used. A thousand years later, three ring-forts were built on the hillside, indicating the continued importance of Rahally into the Early Medieval period. But, as far as the ‘invisible people’ are concerned, once again they eluded the archaeologists grasp. If dryland sites proved deceptive, then perhaps the Irish wetlands would hold the answer.

Wood for the trees

Archaeological specialists usually tend to get involved with projects during the post-excavation phase, bringing their expertise to bear on the processed artefacts and ecofacts in the warm surround-ings of the lab. Wetland archaeolo-gist Catriona Moore is no stranger to the cold outdoors, specialising not just in a type of artefact (wood-working

technology), but also a type of archaeological landscape. But even with this extensive experi-ence, nothing could have prepared her for the spectacular site of Edercloon.

The story of Edercloon began almost 6,000 years ago, when a narrow trackway of branches and twigs was laid down on the wet surface of a County Longford bog, signalling the start of a practice that would continue for the following four millennia and would create one of the most

remarkable archaeological complexes ever discovered in an Irish wetlands environment.

The bog lies in the townland of Eder-cloon, in the north-west corner of County Longford just south of the County Leitrim border. In April 2007, investigations in advance of the N4

Dromod-Roosky Bypass by CRDS Ltd revealed that beneath the grassy sur-face of the reclaimed bog, hidden by deep layers of peat, was a perfectly preserved complex of wooden structures. In the following weeks,

28 trenches were opened and over 100 archaeologists from 17 coun-

tries arrived to work on this remarkable excavation.

The concentration of sites at Edercloon was extremely dense, with 48 previously unknown wooden structures situated in an area measuring 170m long and 30m wide. Despite reclamation and drainage in the last century, these features were perfectly preserved by the wet, anaerobic (oxygen-

free) qualities of the bog. The structures ranged from very large, multi-phase

toghers (trackways), to short foot-paths, small platforms and simple deposits of worked wood. The

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aBove Overall plan of trackways (toghers) and other structures excavated at Edercloon. aBove right Fragmentary alder bowl with carved and perforated handles found in a trackway of early Medieval date. right Brushwood trained to grow in a spiral pattern.

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structures dated from the Neolithic to the Early Medieval period, when this part of the Edercloon bog was clearly an important focal point within the surrounding landscape. This was particularly the case in the centuries of the Late Bronze Age (c.1000-700 BC) to the early Iron Age (c.700-200 BC), during which a network of very large track-ways with associated platforms was built.

The profusion of very large sites within such a small area is unparalleled in Ireland, though dense concentrations of sites have been identi-fied previously in bog environments. While this alone is unusual, the Edercloon complex con-tained even more surprises: interconnecting trackways with meandering routes, several struc-tures of immense scale, and repeated deposition of objects within structures. The Edercloon arte-fact assemblage, comprising bowls, spears,

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right Edecercloon wheel fragment in situ, at the base of a trackway.

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ireland’s earliest wheelA portion of block wheel discovered at Edercloon

is the earliest evidence for the wheel in Ireland,

radiocarbon dated to 1206-970 BC. The wheel

was found buried within the base of a large

trackway, and represents approximately one-

third of a complete wheel.

There are two very distinct sides to the

Edercloon block wheel. The side which was

face-upward when excavated is finely worked

alder, and covered with almost 140 clean, crisp

marks from a sharp-bladed tool, most likely an

adze. The opposite side, which lay on the bog

surface, is worked to a much lesser extent. When

complete, this fragment would have been part

of a tripartite block wheel, similar to Bronze and

Iron Age examples of this type of wheel found in

Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands.

What is most curious about the Edercloon

block wheel is that it could not have been

finished. The outer curve is not continuous, and

so this wheel, if completed, would not have been

able to roll. Was this wheel a manufacturing

mistake, which the community then decided to

reuse as an offering – or as added stability for

the trackway? Or, was this wheel deliberately

made for deposition in this fashion? It seems

likely that it must have more to do with the

enduring tradition of artefact deposition at the

site than with actual use for transport.

right A digital reconstruction of the

Edercloon block wheel.

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tool handles and many items of unknown func-tion, is one of the largest collections of wooden objects ever to be archaeologically recovered from a raised bog in Ireland, and it is believed to represent a distinct Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age practice of votive deposition.

The trackways and assemblage would surely be more than enough to please any archaeologist; but it would be a hidden gem, found buried in the base of a large trackway, that would leave the entire team absolutely amazed: part of a wooden block wheel, now known to be the earliest wheel in Ireland. Fragments of three different wooden wheels, of varying form and date, were found in total, and represent the first instance in Ireland where archaeologists have discovered wheels and trackways in direct association. The presence of wheels at Eder-cloon is most curious, when taken in light of the fact that none of the trackways from which these artefacts were recovered were suited to the use of wheeled vehicles. Additionally, there is a broad chronological span between the three wheel fragments – from as early as 1206 BC through to 880 AD – which points to a local tradition of wheel manufacture over many cen-turies. This evidence combines to indicate that these wheel fragments were likely to have been deliberately placed within the trackways as part

of ritual activity, rather than lost as a result of use.With such breath-taking finds and structures,

Edercloon certainly brings the ‘invisible people’ a bit closer; but the homes and structures of the builders are still missing. Even the artefacts deposited at Edercloon were arguably selected for symbolic reasons, and are not representative of day-to-day lives in a way that might be expected at a similarly complex settlement site. If the elusive Iron Age still cannot be found at one of the best pre-served sites ever excavated in Ireland, then perhaps it is necessary to look at the most controversial.

Much ado about nothing?

The controversy surrounding the construction of the M3 as it passed through the Tara-Skryne valley in Co. Meath was described in CA 247. What is sometimes lost in the polarised debate about the validity of the road are considerations of the significance of the archaeology itself. Taking the ‘invisible people’ barometer used to assess the other sites in this article, we might ask: was the protest about Lismullin much ado about nothing?

Between January and December 2007, excava-tions in advance of the Dunshaughlin-Navan section of the M3 motorway revealed a large, post-built ceremonial enclosure, dating to the early Iron Age (6th to 4th century BC), in the townland of Lismullin, Co. Meath. The excavation was under-taken by ACS Ltd, fielding one of the largest profes-sional archaeology teams ever assembled in Ireland, including six excavation directors, and managed by Aiden O’Connell. A committee of national experts from the museum, curatorial and academic sector were also drafted in to advise on the excavations. Lismullin was a multi-period site with evidence

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If ever there was a place that deserved to be preserved in the name of the dead generations from prehistoric times up to historic times up to completely recently – it was Tara.

right Archaeologists cleaning the outer

enclosure stake-holes at Lismullin in preparation for preliminary drawing.

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from the Early-Middle Neolithic to the post-Medi-eval period, but what motivated the declaration of the site as a National Monument was the Iron Age post enclosure.

The post enclosure occupied a natural, saucer-shaped depression at the west of the site, sur-rounded on all sides by higher ground. There were three surviving elements: an outer enclo-sure, 80m in diameter, defined by a concentric double ring of post holes; a central inner enclo-sure, defined by a single ring of closely spaced post holes; and an east-facing entrance, com-prised of an avenue of widely-spaced post holes. The two outer rings are 1.5m-2m apart and the post holes were at an average of 0.6m. Charcoal from two post-pipes (the voids left once the posts have rotted away) was radiocarbon dated to 520-380 BC and 490-370 BC respectively.

The inner ring was 16m in diameter and con-tained a number of internal features, including three pits with charcoal-rich fills (oriented towards the eastern entrance), as well as a slot trench, traversing the avenue, about 4m from the inner circle. It is likely this would have sup-ported a screen, which would have restricted the view from the entranceway into the inner enclo-sure. A range of artefacts was recovered from the enclosed area, including a fragment of a rectan-gular stone chisel or adze, and both Middle and Late Bronze Age domestic pottery. The Lismullin enclosure appears to represent a single phase of construction and a relatively short period of use.

The choice of location was important. Just 2.1km south-west – and within sight distance – of the Hill of Tara, the enclosure was also in the vicinity of Rath Lugh, Rathmiles, Raith Loegaire and Ringlestown Rath, which were all defensive outposts in the Tara hinterland in the final few centuries BC and early few centuries AD. The enclosure occupied a discreet, sheltered position, with the surrounding higher ground providing a natural amphitheatre. It is likely that a blocking

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Coming next month:Saints and Sinners: fields of conflict in later Medieval Ireland.

Roads, Rediscovery and Research, Archaeology and

the National Roads Authority Monograph Series No. 5.

ISBN 978-0954595562.

Creative Minds, Archaeology and the National Roads

Authority Monograph Series No. 7. ISBN 978-

0956418029.

Aiden O’Connell, ‘The elusive Iron Age: a rare and exciting

site type is uncovered at Lismullen, Co. Meath’. 2007.

Seanda: NRA Archaeology Magazine 2, pp52–54.

further reading

screen was employed at the end of the entrance-way to restrict movement and view from the outer enclosure to the central, cer-emonial space. The construc-tion and siting of the enclosure suggest that it was custom-built to serve the possible short-term needs of its builders; a monument tailor-made for a specific set of events in a carefully chosen landscape setting.

The Lismullin post enclosure was an exciting discovery, but in many ways it high-lights Barry Raftery’s struggle to reconstruct the character of everyday Iron Age life in Ireland. It was a ritual and ceremonial monument, with few finds to suggest that it was used and controlled by anything other than an aristocratic elite. The invisible people remain invisible. The contro-versy surrounding the excavation also brings us back to the steps of the GPO. In an interview with the BBC in March 2008, the Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney said :‘If ever there was a place that deserved to be preserved in the name of the dead generations from prehistoric times up to historic times up to completely recently – it was Tara.’

Now that the Celtic Tiger has come to the end of the road, there are signs that we may be about to discover the invisible people after all. Prof. Ian Armit of Bradford University’s research project, Remodelling the Irish Iron Age, aims to synthesise the evidence from commercially-funded work. By reassessing excavation reports and teasing out the Iron Age data, the project team hope to assimilate this evidence into a wider archaeo-logical narrative, finally filling the void in our understanding. Those of us formerly employed on the front line of the Celtic Tiger wish them the best of luck.

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aBove Topographic survey overlaid with plan of the Lismullin enclosure. Note how it occupies the lowest point of the bowl-shape, rather than the exact centre.