SAMPLE CHAPTER HERE.

The Baltinglass area of south-west Wicklow has the largest concentration of prehistoric hillforts in Ireland. As many as thirteen enclosures of varying design are prominently sited on hills overlooking the modern town. These include some of the most impressive Irish hillforts, the construction of which required coordinated planning and a massive investment of resources. This unique landscape has been the focus of a recent study undertaken by University College Cork. The project combined remote sensing and GIS analysis with conventional archaeological survey and excavation to examine the hillforts in their cultural landscape setting. A palaeoecological study was undertaken at a small bog near Baltinglass to examine the record of human interaction with the local environment over time. For wider context, the Baltinglass sites were also considered in relation to hillfort landscapes in other parts of Ireland and abroad.

The results of this study shed new light on an important archaeological landscape in Ireland. The earliest hill-top enclosures at Baltinglass date back some five and a half thousand years to the first farmers of the Neolithic age. Their settlement can be connected to an impressive passage tomb and to other burial sites of the fourth millennium BC. Somewhat later, large hillforts were built on those same hills during the Middle and Late Bronze Age, c.1400–800 BC. That was a time of settlement expansion and economic prosperity, when distinct chiefdom societies emerged in different parts of Ireland. Hillforts were central places of those territories, variously used for high-status residence, ceremony and assembly. Their presence in the landscape was also an imposing display of power, at a time of growing militarism and conflict involving rival hillfort groups.

Author Bios

Dr James O’Driscoll lectures at the University of Glasgow and specialises in the application of remote sensing and geospatial techniques to the study of prehistoric landscapes across Ireland and Britain. In 2016 he completed a PhD study of the Baltinglass landscape at University College Cork. He has published widely across different periods, from the Neolithic farming communities of Baltinglass, to Bronze Age hillforts and the Iron Age ceremonial centres of Ireland. He is currently working on a survey and excavation project in the famous Navan Fort landscape in Northern Ireland, as well as continuing his research on the Baltinglass landscape.

Dr Alan Hawkes is a graduate of University College Cork where he completed doctoral research on the subject of burnt mound archaeology. Published in 2018 as an Archaeopress monograph, this remains the most comprehensive study of these prehistoric sites in Ireland. Since completing his studies, he has worked on a number of hillfort research projects, including recent excavations at Rathcoran in the Baltinglass landscape. He has published widely in national and international peer-reviewed journals. He is a licenced archaeologist in Ireland, with many years of experience working as a field archaeologist in the commercial sector.  

Professor William O'Brien is a graduate of University College Cork where he completed doctoral research in 1987 on prehistoric copper mining. Prior to his appointment to the Cork chair in 2006, he lectured for 16 years at the University of Galway. Research interests include the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age in Ireland, early mining and metallurgy in Atlantic Europe, upland archaeology, the study of hillforts and all aspects of monumentality in the later prehistoric period. Much of his work focuses on the prehistory of south-west Ireland, where he has conducted many research excavations, now published in various monographs and papers.