Brusselstown Ring: a nucleated settlement agglomeration in prehistoric Ireland

Dirk Brandherm; Cherie Edwards; Linda Boutoille; James O'Driscoll

doi:10.15184/aqy.2025.10247

Brusselstown Ring: a nucleated settlement agglomeration in prehistoric Ireland

Dirk Brandherm^*
, Cherie Edwards
, Linda Boutoille
, James O'Driscoll

^*Corresponding author for this work

School of Natural and Built Environment

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

16 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Following the identification of more than 600 suspected house platforms on aerial survey data from Brusselstown Ring hillfort, four test excavations revealed evidence of Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age occupation, positioning the site as the largest nucleated settlement so far identified in prehistoric Ireland and Britain.

Original language	English
Number of pages	8
Journal	Antiquity
Volume	99
Issue number	408
Early online date	18 Nov 2025
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2025.10247
Publication status	Early online date - 18 Nov 2025

Keywords

Ireland
Late Bronze Age
Early Iron Age
remote sensing
LiDAR
Hillfort
proto-urbanism
settlement

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Archaeology
Archaeology

Access to Document

10.15184/aqy.2025.10247Licence: CC BY

Brusselstown Ring: a nucleated settlement agglomeration in prehistoric Ireland
Copyright 2025 the authors. This is an open access article published under a Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the author and source are cited.
Final published version, 11.2 MBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

@article{fbacdae7e3d240f3a6ce636f9dc33d50,

title = "Brusselstown Ring: a nucleated settlement agglomeration in prehistoric Ireland",

abstract = "Following the identification of more than 600 suspected house platforms on aerial survey data from Brusselstown Ring hillfort, four test excavations revealed evidence of Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age occupation, positioning the site as the largest nucleated settlement so far identified in prehistoric Ireland and Britain.",

keywords = "Ireland, Late Bronze Age, Early Iron Age, remote sensing, LiDAR, Hillfort, proto-urbanism, settlement",

author = "Dirk Brandherm and Cherie Edwards and Linda Boutoille and James O'Driscoll",

year = "2025",

month = nov,

day = "18",

doi = "10.15184/aqy.2025.10247",

language = "English",

volume = "99",

journal = "Antiquity",

issn = "0003-598X",

publisher = "Cambridge University Press",

number = "408",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Brusselstown Ring: a nucleated settlement agglomeration in prehistoric Ireland

AU - Brandherm, Dirk

AU - Edwards, Cherie

AU - Boutoille, Linda

AU - O'Driscoll, James

PY - 2025/11/18

Y1 - 2025/11/18

N2 - Following the identification of more than 600 suspected house platforms on aerial survey data from Brusselstown Ring hillfort, four test excavations revealed evidence of Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age occupation, positioning the site as the largest nucleated settlement so far identified in prehistoric Ireland and Britain.

AB - Following the identification of more than 600 suspected house platforms on aerial survey data from Brusselstown Ring hillfort, four test excavations revealed evidence of Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age occupation, positioning the site as the largest nucleated settlement so far identified in prehistoric Ireland and Britain.

KW - Ireland

KW - Late Bronze Age

KW - Early Iron Age

KW - remote sensing

KW - LiDAR

KW - Hillfort

KW - proto-urbanism

KW - settlement

U2 - 10.15184/aqy.2025.10247

DO - 10.15184/aqy.2025.10247

M3 - Article

SN - 0003-598X

VL - 99

JO - Antiquity

JF - Antiquity

IS - 408

ER -

Brusselstown Ring: a nucleated settlement agglomeration in prehistoric Ireland

Abstract

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Access to Document

Fingerprint

Cite this