County Wicklow: Discovery of settlement could challenge theory of early Viking towns

A newly discovered large hilltop settlement could challenge the theory that Vikings built Ireland’s first towns, a researcher has said.

Dr Dirk Brandherm and his colleagues have identified more than 600 suspicious houses in the Brussels City Ring, making it, to date, the largest nucleated settlement ever discovered in the whole of prehistoric Britain and Ireland.

The settlement, believed to have emerged around 1200 BC (Late Bronze Age), is located in an area called Baltinglass Hillfort Cluster, on the south-western edge of the Wicklow Mountains.

It is one of 13 large hilltop enclosures spread across the mountain range where there are structures dating from the Neolithic and early Bronze Age periods.

The results were recently published in Antiquitya peer-reviewed journal of global archaeology.

The study states: “Given its exceptional size, density of occupation and architectural complexity, the Brussels Ring represents a unique case both within the Baltinglass hill group and more broadly within the Atlantic archipelago.”

Survey work has been carried out over the past two decades, but researchers believe that crucial questions about “the date, development and function of the enclosure elements and internal settlement remain unanswered.”

The researchers therefore launched test excavations in 2024.

“Available evidence indicates their occupation primarily in the Late Bronze Age, with continued use or reuse of some house platforms into the Early Iron Age.

“This makes Brusselstown Ring the largest nucleated settlement by far in prehistoric Ireland and Britain,” the study points out.

Dr Brandherm, professor of prehistoric archeology at Queen’s University Belfast, said the Brussels Ring Road is important because of the “large number and concentration of roundhouses” in one location.

The image that archaeologists had is that in the Bronze Age, the structure of the habitat was based on small hamlets (one to five dwellings) and that there were neither villages nor towns.

In 2002, around 74 Bronze Age roundhouses were discovered during excavations at Corrstown in Northern Ireland.

The researcher said Corrstown was the first village of this era, but the Brussels Ring is “a completely different ball game”.

The discovery of the Brusselstown Ring calls into question the idea that the first towns on the island of Ireland were founded by the Vikings, according to the researcher.

“Because if you have over 600 roundhouses, and potentially a big stone cistern, it’s no longer a village,” Dr Brandherm told BBC News NI.

“We’re talking about a sort of proto-city, and it was 2,000 years before the Vikings.”

Two widely spaced ramparts (defensive walls) surround the enclosure.

These ramparts surround not only its own summit, but also that of nearby Spinas Hill One, meaning it is one of the few forts in Europe to span more than a single hill.

Through aerial surveys and photogrammetric mapping, it is suspected that 98 of the house platforms were within the inner enclosure and over 500 were located between the two ramparts.

Dr Brandherm said: ‘Based on the data we currently have, all domestic platforms appear to be from the same period.

A chamber with a flat floor and lined with stones was also discovered near one of the trenches at the site.

Dr Brandherm described it as being “boat-shaped” and “slightly larger than a round house”.

It appears to have been fed by a stream from an outcrop upstream, and archaeologists believe it may have been a water cistern intended to store fresh water.

Other samples in the coming months will make it possible to determine whether the cistern dates from the same period as the rotundas.

He said if confirmed the discovery would be a “first in Ireland” as there are similar structures dating from the Bronze Age and Iron Age in France and Spain.

Four test excavations were carried out by archaeologists to understand the occupation of the site.

The tests varied between six and 12 m in diameter to represent house platforms of different sizes.

The idea was to study whether architectural differences in the platforms would signify whether there was social or economic stratification within the community.

Dr Brandherm said the small houses were around four to five meters in diameter, with the larger ones measuring between 11 and 12 meters in diameter.

“But the fact that we have different sizes, you know, raises the question of whether there is a social differentiation behind that,” he said.

However, based on current data, Dr Brandherm said it could not be confirmed whether there was a social hierarchy in the neighborhood.

Before this, the largest group of ancient settlements was at Mullaghfarna, County Sligo, which is believed to have contained over 150 houses during the Middle Stone Age period from 3300 to 2900 BC and the Late Bronze Age between 1200 and 900 BC.

The research says future work in Brussels “will focus on confirming the nature and date of the potential cistern, identifying the structural features of the prehistoric rotundas, and establishing the nature and chronology of the features surrounding it.”