This book is written by and mainly for archeologists, but its accessible style will also make it attractive to general readers with a strong interest in Irish history and culture or the early Middle Ages. Its eight chapters look at the history of archeology in Ireland, early medieval dwellings and settlements, the early church, farming, crafts and technology, trade and exchange, and death and burial. A final chapter offers conclusions. Color photographs throughout show aerial views of sites, artifacts, and features of interest. The writers are clear both about what is and isn't known, and the new discoveries which are possible with new tools such as DNA evidence. Points made include that the adoption of Christian practices were slow and varied a lot among communities, and Irish society changed enormously in the fifth to sixth centuries. A very large rear section offers many tables and comprehensive appendices of evidence: sites, coins, raths, trackways, Roman materials, antlerworking, metalworking, and so on. Distributed in the US by ISBS. Annotation ©2014 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)
How did people live in their own worlds in early medieval Ireland? What did they actually do? To what end did they think they were doing it? This book investigates and reconstructs from the archaeological evidence how the early medieval Irish people lived together as social groups, worked the land as farmers, worshipped God, made and used objects, and buried their dead. The book focuses on the evidence from excavations conducted between 1930 and 2012 and uses that evidence to explore how people used their landscapes, dwellings, and material culture to effect and negotiated social, ideological, and economic continuities and changes during the period AD 400-1100.
