The Late Bronze Age Settlement of the Burren

Clare Hennigar

Aim 1: To investigate the extent of settlement on the Burren in the Late Bronze Age

Objective 1a: Use comparative morphology to identify further hill-slope enclosures on the Burren and compile an inventory of all that can be identified.

Objective 1b: Re-evaluate the Grogan model that proposes a movement of population off of the Burren in the later Bronze Age.

Aim 2: To investigate the nature of settlement (social and economic) on the Burren in the Late Bronze Age

Objective 2: Compare the Late Bronze Age settlement pattern on the Burren to the Late Bronze Age hierarchical settlement pattern modelled by Grogan for the Mooghaun region in south-east County Clare.

My area of interest is the late Bonze Age settlement of the Burren.  The focus of my research is the study of a particular settlement type that has only recently been identified on the Burren – hill-slope enclosures. Excavation carried out on one of these enclosures has returned radiocarbon dates from the Late Bronze Age, a period in prehistory that until now has not been adequately recognised in the archaeological record of the Burren.

The recognition and dating of these hill-slope enclosures provides a unique opportunity to look for additional examples of these sites, to explore the pattern of their distribution across the Burren, and from this to investigate the extent and nature of settlement on the Burren in the Late Bronze Age.

Dr. Blair Gibson carried out test excavations in 1985, as part of the Cahercommaun Project, on parts of the ramparts of a hill-slope enclosure at Ballyconry.  Gibson particularly emphasised the morphology of the ramparts as indicative of late a Bronze Age enclosure, along with radiocarbon dates placing it c.1000BC.  

It is these characteristics that I have used in identifying further late Bronze Age enclosures in the landscape.

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