Bronze Age · c. 1200–400 BC · Brusselstown Ring, County Wicklow, Ireland
Bronze Age hillfort in Ireland had more than 600 house platforms, study finds
Surveys and test excavations at Brusselstown Ring in County Wicklow point to a densely packed community occupied from around 1200 BC into the Early Iron Age.
Peer-reviewed paper
Brusselstown Ring, Ireland A hillfort in County Wicklow, in eastern Ireland, contained evidence for more than 600 houses. According to a study published in Antiquity, that makes it the largest nucleated settlement yet identified in prehistoric Britain or Ireland.
The site is called Brusselstown Ring. Radiocarbon dates and finds from it suggest that it was occupied mainly between about 1200 and 400 BC. That period runs from the Late Bronze Age into the Early Iron Age.
In a nucleated settlement, houses are clustered together rather than scattered across the countryside as separate farms. Most known settlement in prehistoric Ireland takes the scattered form: isolated farmsteads and small hamlets. Larger villages were already known, such as the Bronze Age village at Corrstown, found in 2002.
Until now the largest comparable cluster in Ireland was at Mullaghfarna in County Sligo. Around 150 structures have been recorded there.
The project is led by Dirk Brandherm of Queen's University Belfast. His co-authors on the paper are C. Edwards, L. Boutoille and J. O'Driscoll.
Two ramparts enclose two hills
Brusselstown Ring is one of up to 13 large hilltop enclosures in the Baltinglass hillfort cluster. This area saw almost continuous activity from the Early Neolithic through the Bronze Age. Two widely spaced ramparts surround the site.
The outer rampart takes in both the main hillfort and the neighbouring Spinas Hill. Inside it is an older Neolithic enclosure known as Spinas Hill 1. Enclosures that span more than one hill are rare in Ireland and Britain. They are very uncommon even in later Iron Age Europe.
Airborne and topographical surveys picked out more than 600 faint platforms. The team interprets them as the foundations of roundhouses. Ninety-eight lie inside the inner enclosure. More than 500 sit in the ground between the inner and outer ramparts.
This isn't simply a village. The number of domestic structures suggests an organised community on a scale that begins to resemble a proto-town.
Dirk Brandherm, Queen's University Belfast, quoted by Arkeonews
Ireland's first towns are usually credited to Viking settlers of the 9th and 10th centuries, at places such as Dublin, Waterford and Limerick. The research team says the word "town" has to be used cautiously for a prehistoric site. But it says Brusselstown shows concentrated communal living and coordinated construction.
Large and small houses were in use at the same time
In 2024 the team dug four trenches across house platforms of different sizes to test the survey results. The dwellings ranged from about four metres to as much as twelve metres in diameter.
According to Archaeology News, houses of different diameters were in use at the same time. It also reports that the artefacts found in them showed no clear differences in wealth or status. Archaeology News reads this as a sign of a relatively egalitarian community. Arkeonews describes the evidence on social ranking as still inconclusive.
A possible cistern beside a spring
Near one trench the excavators found a stone-lined structure with a flat interior. It lies beside a natural water source. Its form makes it unlikely to be an ordinary roundhouse. The team thinks it may have been a cistern fed by an upland spring.
Similar structures are known from parts of continental Europe, including France and Spain. None has been recorded in an Irish hillfort. Radiocarbon dating could place it in the same period as the houses. That would point to considerable planning to supply water to a large population on the hilltop.
A gradual abandonment
The settlement appears to have been abandoned gradually during the 3rd century BC. Other, smaller hilltop settlements in Ireland were abandoned too. The decline does not seem to be directly connected to climate change. Archaeology News suggests that social and economic factors played a larger part.
The team's next steps are to confirm what the possible cistern was used for and to refine the dating of the ramparts. It also plans to study how the roundhouses were built and how long they stood.
Sources
- Scientists uncover Ireland’s largest prehistoric hillfort settlement, reshaping views of Bronze Age society (Archaeology News)
- Newly Uncovered Bronze Age Megasettlement in Wicklow Challenges Long-Held Beliefs About Ireland’s First Towns (Arkeonews)
Paper: Brandherm, D., Edwards, C., Boutoille, L. & O'Driscoll, J. (2025). Brusselstown Ring: a nucleated settlement agglomeration in prehistoric Ireland. Antiquity, 1–8. doi:10.15184/aqy.2025.10247
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