ABSTRACT
At the end of the previous chapter reference was made to the Iron Age. In the general sequence of technological events in Europe the use of iron comes after that of bronze. The period stretching from the late seventh century through the succeeding centuries is one of the more obscure periods in Irish prehistory. It is, however, possible that formative events took place during these centuries. It may even have been the time that Celtic settlement took place. A new technology was probably also introduced but over-use of the term ‘Iron Age’ can limit a wider appreciation of the period. The first fixed point in the ‘Iron Age’ is provided by the fine bronze-work decorated in the La Tène style and dating from late in the first millennium B.c. But the outstanding question is what events took place between, say, 600 B.c. and 200 B.c. Was a new culture established and if so was the change brought about by the arrival of new people? The answer may be held by the hill-forts, a western multivallate group and an eastern univallate group (p. 227). Now, attention has already been drawn to the regional distribution of some metal artifacts of the final phase of the Bronze Age (p. 208). At that time a distribution pattern emerged and this pattern continued into the Early Christian period (Eogan 1974b). In view of the distribution patterns it is tempting to suggest that a south-western industrial province with its abundance of gold (Eogan 1964, Fig. 19) might be linked with the occupiers of the multivallate hill-forts while the users of some of the artifacts that have a predominantly north-eastern distribution might be part of the other cultural province that had univallate hill-forts; in other words that people of the final phase of the Bronze Age in two different regions of Ireland took to the building of different forms of large-scale settlement site. At present there is not enough evidence to prove this point. On the other hand there is the possibility that the multivallate and univallate hill-forts document the arrival of new people. As will be argued below, it is possible that there is an assemblage of monuments – promontory forts, stone forts, souterrains – of which the multivallate hill-fort is only a part. Furthermore, the hill-forts lack insular forerunners and their construction was a formidable task. But above all their presence suggests a new, possibly intrusive, society with tribal centres and probably chiefs. This new society had its bronze-smiths but very likely they were joined by the blacksmith.
