Dun Ailinne and Its Meaning in the Context of Irish Identities

Summary

This is an abstract from the "On the Periphery or the Leading Edge? Research in Prehistoric Ireland" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The notion that, historically, Ireland was a homogeneous society situated on the edge of Europe and passively receiving cultural influences has long been implicit in the larger context of European archaeology. And yet Irish society and culture were neither passive nor homogeneous at any point in the island’s history. This is evident through both material culture, which shows active choice in terms of incorporating foreign elements, and through documentary sources, which indicate some of the internal variation among contemporary communities in Ireland. In this paper, these issues are explored in the context of recent research at the archaeological site of Dún Ailinne, a ceremonial site in Co. Kildare. In the Iron Age, Dún Ailinne was an important place in terms of both local identity and island-wide expressions of power, and this continued into the subsequent early medieval period but in significantly altered ways. Dún Ailinne thus provides an interesting case study to explore the interaction of similarity and difference in the context of island society and culture in the past.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• On the Periphery or the Leading Edge? Research in Prehistoric Ireland

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 26267