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Hill Forts in Ireland

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  Posted by TonyG (U1830405) on Tuesday, 12th October 2010

  I have been doing a bit of reading about the hill forts at Emain Macha (Navan Fort) and Tara, both of which seem to have been ceremonial sites rather than occupied homes. The main thing that puzzles me is where did the people who used these ceremonial sites actually live? Emain Macha seems to be associated with kings and warriors and is cited as a regional capital but if nobody actually lived within the hill fort how did it get this reputation?
  
  I suppose the archaeologists could have missed signs of occupation but it does seem unlikely given the extensive digging on the site. The nearby Haughey's Fort was abandoned in the Bronze Age, so where did the locals actually live?
  
  Hopefully some of our learned Irish contributors will have a theory or explanation to solve this puzzle for me.

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  Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Tuesday, 12th October 2010

  Hi TonyG
  
  I can't answer your question as far as it applies to Ireland, although several posters here undoubtedly will. As you know yours is a very pertinent question applicable to most parts of the world. Where did the builders of Stonehenge live? Where did the people whose bones were placed in Long Barrows live?
  
  In prehistoric Britain stone seems to have been employed often in buildings of ritual significance. Wood, thatch and skins were used for ordinary habitation and these have not survived well. This is what makes Orkney so special. The absence of wood, and the presence of stone perfectly adapted for building, means that amazingly sophisticated Neolithic villages have remained.
  
  But to survive the climate in Ireland and Britain you would have needed housing, and round houses were constructed as far back as the Mesolithic, as archaeologists are just beginning to establish.
  
  Best wishes,
  
  TP

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  Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Tuesday, 12th October 2010

  Hi TonyG
  
  I'm not that well acquainted with Navan Fort and how much contextual excavation has occurred outside of its modern boundaries. However in the case of Tara such excavation has a long pedigree with which I am familiar. While the hill itself is indeed accepted to have always been a largely ceremonial site it has also long been accepted that it represented for long periods of its history a focal point for an entire community which occupied the Gabhra Valley and for which many evidences have been found. The monumental artefacts suggest that ceremony was not confined to Tara. However the more prosaic artefacts suggest also that the area was not "reserved" for such ceremony but also the site of intensive cultivation and inhabitation over a timescale corresponding to that which we ascribe to Tara and its related monuments.
  
  Since 2007 the National Museum has been collating and analysing finds from Tara and environs which (amazingly) were excavated in the 1950s but which only became available to the Museum in 2005/6. Pottery finds from the Mound of The Hostages (what a great name for a mound) might be of particular interest to you since they provide evidence of such long term domestic habitation as you wonder about, and right slap-bang in the middle of the ancient ceremonial complex. Similar finds which have been controversially excavated in recent years along the route of the motorway now desecrating the site prompted a seminar last year which attempted to revise our understanding of Bronze and early Iron Age habitation in the region. It was decided rather unanimously that the incidence of the finds suggests a rather larger population than hitherto had been assumed, and that for many centuries the entire area could well have functioned as a kind of prehistoric "capital", with the same concentrations of population, skills and activity as typify its modern counterpart in Dublin.
  
  The Mound excavation provides the material for the Museum's "Rites Of Passage At Tara" exhibition and I know that Pat Wallace has plans that this be broadened to include finds from the wider area at some point so if you plan a visit to Dublin keep an eye out for what's on up in Kildare Street.
  
  Incidentally I'd advise some caution before assuming that the "abandonment" of any fort suggests no further habitation. Time and time again this assumption has been contradicted with regard to hill forts after excavation, and what is generally accepted now is that their function as military forts fluctuated with military necessities but that their function as communal focal points had its own pattern throughout time. It has caused some argument here in the past between those who equate the term "fort" only with its military application and those (such as myself) who prefer to believe the available evidence points to a more multi-faceted functionality and usage of these structures, but I still rather doggedly stick to the principle that abandonment of function does not necessarily equate with an end to local habitation.

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  Posted by TonyG (U1830405) on Tuesday, 12th October 2010

  Thanks. That is very helpful. I take your point about abandonment but if archaeology has found evidence of Bronze Age settlement at the likes of Haughey's Fort but no traces of Iron Age artefacts, it seems likely that there was no long term domestic occupation during the Iron Age.
  
  Thanks for the info on the wider settlement of the area surrounding Tara. I suppose a rather crude analogy of what might have happened is the modern Houses of Parliament in London. They are the centre of government but nobody actually lives there. Ancient sacred sites such as Tara and Emain Macha may well have been surrounded by the domestic settlements of the people who used the "forts" on ceremonial occasions. If the forts were occupied during the Bronze Age, I suppose they may well have acquired ritual significance by the time of the Iron Age by virtue of being the home and burial places of the people's ancestors.

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  Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Tuesday, 12th October 2010

  In the case of Tara there is not much evidence of the site ever having been used in the same manner as, for example, the Newgrange/Knowth/Dowth complex - the Mound Of The Hostages being the sole notable exception though its form and structure makes it a rather smaller contemporary of its Boyne Valley neighbours.
  
  Nor is Tara a "hill fort" in the accepted sense of the term. It is in fact notable for the absence of substantial earthwork defences, a point which has been seized on in the past as evidence that its prestige alone was great and sustained enough to exempt it from the need to defend itself.
  
  Finally I hope you don't have the impression that no evidence of normal domestic habitation has been found on the site. The opposite is in fact the case. The Irish Archaeology Journal last year actually had an article concerning the agricultural use to which the hill was subject even throughout its long history as a ceremonial centre. The finds from the Mound excavation also support the presumption that the area within its immediate radius was the site of centuries of continuous domestic occupation.
  
  Regarding Haughey's Fort, it was my understanding that Iron Age artefacts were indeed discovered there, and that the current debate therefore is between those who suggest this implies a rehabitation of the site and those who suggest continuous habitation. The latter view is supported by comparison with other sites in the area, the former view by an as yet unclosed gap in the artefactual evidence.

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