EXAMINING AN EARLY MEDIEVAL CRANNOG’S RESPONSE TO ENVIRONMENTAL, SOCIOPOLITICAL AND ECONOMIC CHANGES

The Early Medieval period in Ireland (like much of Europe) was a time of significant social, economic and political change. Chronology is key to understanding these changes and transitions in a meaningful way. A disproportionate importance has been placed on the establishment and abandonment of settlement in Ireland, with little focus on the intervening period of occupation. This has been detrimental to a deeper understanding of how sites developed in response to social-political and economic change during their occupation. Through the period, crannogs came to be a common settlement type, though debate continues about their function and status. Reconciling their occupation with early textual evidence is, however, hindered by the differences in the dating precision available, which at best includes precise dendrochronological dates for some of the construction phases. Tree-ring analysis of short-lived timbers used in crannog construction offers a means to overcome this limitation. Drumclay crannóg, a site in the north of Ireland, comprised 7 m of waterlogged archaeological deposits dating from the 9–17th centuries AD. Here we show that it is possible to scrutinise life in Early Medieval and Medieval Ireland at an annual resolution using a combination of tree-ring analysis of alder timbers, radiocarbon dating and wiggle matching, with close analysis of the archaeological record. The results reveal the pace at which the site developed and provide an unrivalled view of crannog evolution in time and space. New archaeological interpretations will therefore be based not just within a confined time period, but on a year by year basis. This multidisciplinary approach allows us to consider life on the crannóg at a timescale relevant to human history in relation to major environmental, socio-political and economic changes. We anticipate that this approach will provide new theoretical perspectives with which to understand Early Medieval and Medieval settlement in Ireland.
Author(s): Barrett, Marie-Therese - Plunkett, Gill - Brown, David - Donnelly, Colm (Queen‘s University Belfast)

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