Connections and Distance: Investigating Social and Agricultural Issues Relating to Early Medieval Crannogs in Ireland

Abstract

This paper considers approaches to the study of Early Medieval crannogs in Ireland, focussing particularly on social and agricultural issues. The architecture of crannogs suggests an act of isolation, perhaps representing an Early Medieval ideology, while their material assemblages demonstrate that people in their practical lives would have depended on others to varying extents. Previously held hypotheses concerning the association of crannogs exclusively with higher-status social groups are challenged in this paper. The perceived dominance of animal husbandry in many archaeological texts is also questioned. The diverse roles of arable agricultural products in Early Medieval society are then explored, with the use of contemporary documentary sources, in order to investigate issues beyond economic concerns. Our excavation of a crannog at Sroove in Lough Cara, Co. Sligo, provides a case study with which we can reconsider approaches to the study of crannogs in Ireland.