SOCIETY AND SETTLEMENT IN GLENDALOUGH ... - Ian Cantwell

settlement and the ritual landscape which is obvious in the GlasnamuUen area withsettlement on the plateau and tombs on Djouce mountain (725m). The ritualsignificance ofParkmore is unclear though they do stand at a cross-roads. Withinthearea the archaeological indications are that Ballyremon Commons, PowerscourtPaddock and Glasnamullen have been continuously settled from at least the late thirdmillennium Be onwards and were probably the centres of settlement until at least1200AD.25It must be stressed that all interpretations ofthe area's prehistory are based on surveysof surviving surface sites and that the area has had hardly any archaeologicalexcavation. The concentrationofsettlement in the northern part ofthe plateau, situatedon passes from the northern and eastern lowlands is likely to be significant. The lack ofsites from the Glendalough valley may be a function of the intense landscapemanagement from the early Christianperiod. In general the area is poorly representedby archaeological remains.Early settlement probablywas basedon the shifting model oflandscape clearance andabandonment within forest clearings followed by later more permanent settlement onthe plateau based in northern higher sections 26 . A major clearance phase ofoak, birchand alder appears in about 3,.500 BP (1,.500 Be) and this cuhninates in the firstappearance ofcereal pollen (Triticum) about 200 years later. Charcoal values show asharp rise around this time. Cereal planting was probably on the lighter soils ofmoraines above the lakes with cycles of clearance and abandonment happening at afaster rate. This late date of cereal farming, approximately 1,500 years after its firstrecorded appearanee27~is perhaps typical ofupland areas and this expansion is maybeLandscapeArchaeologyin Ire/and. R:eeves-Smyth Terence & Hamond Fred, London, 1984, p. 183~5250ropn OIl.cit. p. 244 for map26AalenF.RA, ManlJlldthe landscape in Ireland, London, 1978,p. 6527Edwards K.J., The Anthropogenic factor in vegatational history, Quatemary Ireland. eel. EdwardsKIlt WarrenW.P.,London, 1985,pp. 196-716