The Later Bronze Age in Ireland in the light of recent research

Abstract

The term ‘Later Bronze Age’ is being used in this paper to cover that period of the Bronze Age in Ireland that started around 1200 B.C. and continued on until supplanted by iron-using cultures during the second half of the first millennium B.C. This term provides a means of escaping from the nomenclature that is applied to the period covering the last two centuries of the second millennium B.C. and the beginning of the first millennium B.C., a phase considered by some as a late Middle Bronze Age and by others as an early Late Bronze Age. Here both terms are being avoided and the period is called the ‘Bishopsland Phase’. This is followed by the ‘Roscommon Phase’ of roughly the 9th and a large part of the 8th centuries B.C. Finally comes the ‘Dowris Phase’. It is hoped that this new terminology will allow the Irish material to be more readily incorporated in any future overall scheme for the Bronze Age in Great Britain and Ireland. The Middle Bronze Age in Ireland is here restricted to cover approximately the 14th and 13th centuries B.C.