Archaeology in Ireland

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‘Critically evaluate the contributions of archaeology to our knowledge of proto-urban settlements in Ireland’ Ireland, before the arrival of the Anglo-Norman’s and the Norse was a country where society was heavily centred on the tribe and the family unit. Kingship of small, local areas was dependant on strong family ties and life was extremely rural-based. Power was based on territory and the size of the larger kin group to which power was distributed. Land, cattle and the size and strength of one’s kin group were the measures of men; social activities, economic and religious functions centred on the residence of the local petty king. After the arrival of the Norse and the Anglo-Normans, Irish society evolved from a rural, kinship based society in which all power-religious, economic and social, was centred on the extended family unit to one where all social functions were carried out in urban settlements, where kin and family ties were of lesser importance than in ancient Irish life. The question of urbanism is an important factor on the evolution of early medieval society in Ireland. There is not much concrete information on this period available for study, but archaeological information pieced together with written material from the period can produce a somewhat comprehensible study of what life and society were like in that era. It is easy to say that urbanism of society in Ireland began, like on the continent and in Britain with the hill fort. The hill fort had strong religious ties in pagan Ireland. The hill forts were the largest enclosures made by man in early Ireland, but however, are not linked to the urbanism of Irish society (Doherty, 2005, 2). While serving as cult centres for societies, and perhaps areas of trade and craft activity, they would not have measured up to any modern sense of a town. The conversion of these cult centres often
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