Local Worlds: Early Settlement Landscapes and Upland Farming in South-West Ireland

This is the first book published on the subject of pre-bog field walls and early farming in Ireland. New archaeological research is presented on the story of hill farming in the south-west region and its impact on the environment over the past 4,000 years. The exceptional preservation of early farmscapes in upland environments provides an important insight into the development of small local communities and their sense of place. This reveals the ways in which particular groups of people in the past adapted to very distinct physical environments, and how their economic strategies, settlement organization and cultural values transformed those same locations over time.
The Beara Peninsula in counties Cork and Kerry has a great wealth of archaelogical remains, dating from the Bronze Age to medieval times. The hill valleys in this peninsula contain an important landscape record of early agriculture, where ancient fields and settlements have been preserved under the growth of blanket peat. This book considers the land-use dynamics of these upland locations, to explore themes of settlement continuity and change from the late prehistoric to the early medieval period, c. 2000 BC-AD 1000. It is a timely study of these ancient landscapes, as Irish agriculture is facing major changes in coming years, with potentially serious implications for upland archaeology.