Earlier Prehistoric Settlement in the Boyne Valley: A Systematic Ploughzone Survey
Conor Brady
Submitted 2005
Supervisor:
Professor Gabriel Cooney, Archaeology
Dr. Graeme Warren, Archaeology
Funded by: The Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences
Faculty of Arts Open Post Graduate Scholarship from University College Dublin
Abstract
The Boyne Valley and especially the area known as Brú na Bóinne is world famous for its Neolithic passage tomb cemetery and other prehistoric monuments. Now designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the area has been the focus of much archaeological research work. However, most of our understanding of the settlement of the area during prehistory has come to light as a chance by-product of excavations of the monuments. The scale of the monuments suggests that there was probably a sizeable population living in their environs and the main aim of this research is to identify the locations and character of areas used for this activity in the landscape in the earlier prehistoric period.
We know that apart from habitation, prehistoric people used their landscapes in complex ways. As well as habitation areas there would have been numerous other locations of significance within the landscape, e.g., activity/work areas, raw material procurement areas, processing areas and disposal areas as well as ritual and ceremonial sites. A range of activities is likely to have taken place at any one location but it is probable that certain locations or location types were favoured for particular activities. Using systematic surface collection from ploughed fields combined with lithic analysis, the main aim of the research is to identify the range of site types and their locations in order to construct a model of landscape use as it evolved during the earlier prehistoric.
The study area chosen measures 6km by 4km and contains over 5km2 of available (arable) land, which was all examined. The distribution of available land is good and includes a range of elevations, slope types and soil types with a number of watercourses; all factors which would have influenced settlement location decisions in the past. The proximity of scatters to watercourses, fording points on the river, extant monuments and views of the core area north of the river are being used to analyse the lithic distributions. The field was used as the sampling unit and within each field transects were spaced at c. 10m intervals while each transect was divided into 25m long stints. Thus, all finds were localised to an area of 10m by 25m and National Grid coordinates have been assigned to each find facilitating plotting on a GIS model of the area. Fieldwork is complete and almost 8,000 lithic artefacts have been recovered including a range of materials, predominantly flint but also chert, quartz, shale and porcellanite. Broad zones of activity have been identified, the densest of which are located to the north of the river within Brú na Bóinne but highly significant areas have also been identified on the southern side of the river. Over forty major scatters have been located and a further 100 or so smaller scatters have been identified to date using GIS software. Comparison to excavated assemblages indicates that many of the scatters are highly significant in terms of the scale of activity they represent. Additional work was carried out at a selection of locations and included magnetic susceptibility survey, limited resistivity survey and soil phosphate testing as well as trial excavation.
The immediate results of the fieldwork demonstrate that there is clear evidence that there was substantial settlement and related activity not only in the immediate areas of the monuments but also on the south side of the river where no monuments remain. Work continues on the analysis of the lithic distributions and, using GIS software, the exploration of their relationship over time to landscape variables and the construction of a model of landscape use.