Peopling the Landscape: The Pollen Record and Nomadic Pastoralism in Iron Age Ireland

Summary

The people of the Irish Iron Age are often referred to as ‘invisible’ due to their seeming absence from the archaeological record. Ceramics, so often associated with domestic activities, are not a part of the Iron Age material culture. Burials and domestic settlements dating to the Iron Age exist, but they are the exception to the generally sparse archaeological record. In the absence of sufficient material culture and settlement patterns, other means of studying the people of the Iron Age must be considered. Pollen, sampled from cores extracted from peat bogs, provide the means to reconstruct local vegetation and identify human impact and abandonment in the landscape. Examination of the pollen record from four bogs in the Midlands of Ireland show a pattern of low-intensity pastoralism, suggesting people lived in dispersed, likely nomadic, communities during much of the Iron Age. The Iron Age records indicate a starkly different way of life than that of the preceding Bronze Age and succeeding Early Medieval Period.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 22093