County Wicklow: Settlement find may challenge Vikings first towns theory - researcher

Dr Dirk Brandherm and his colleagues have identified more than 600 suspected house platforms in the Brusselstown Ring.

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Dr Dirk Brandherm and his colleagues have identified more than 600 suspected houses in the Brusselstown Ring making it, to date, the largest nucleated settlement ever discovered in the entirety of prehistoric Britain and Ireland.

The settlement, which is thought to have emerged at about 1200 BC (the Late Bronze Age), is located within a region called the Baltinglass Hillfort Cluster in the south-western edge of the Wicklow Mountains.

It is among the 13 large hilltop enclosures spread across the mountain range where there are structures dating back to the Neolithic period and Early Bronze Age.

The findings were recently published within Antiquity, a peer-reviewed journal of world archaeology.