Victoria Ginn
Victoria Ginn
Postgraduate
Email: vginn01@qub.ac.uk
Address
School of Geography, Archaeology and Palaeoecology (GAP)
Queen’s University Belfast
Belfast, BT7 1NN
Northern Ireland, UK
Telephone
+44 (0)28 9097 5287
Current Research: Past Cultural Change
Settlement Structure in the Middle–Late Bronze Age in Ireland
Ireland’s status and role in the later European Bronze Age is clearly demonstrated by its remarkable corpus of fine metalwork that was produced during the Irish Middle to Late Bronze Age (c. 1600–600 cal BC), but the social, economic and political context in which this metalwork was produced is not at all understood. Archaeological investigations in Ireland over the last two decades have extended greatly the knowledge of human activity in this period. The settlement evidence now includes a wealth of individual house sites, a unique, highly nucleated village, an increasing number of habitations in wetland settings and several hillforts (previously assumed to be of Iron Age date), as well as the widespread and well-dated corpus of fulachta fiadh and a lesser known record of upland field systems. Possible hierarchy in settlement has been proposed for one region (northwest Munster) on the basis of the distribution of high visibility, but mainly undated, sites and there has been a suggestion of possible regionalism in the architectural house styles of northeast Ulster. There has been no detailed, systematic attempt made to understand the evidence now available for settlement in this period, however, either in terms of site location, site distribution, parallels beyond Ireland, or chronological developments.
This project will collate all current data relating to settlements firmly dated to Middle to Late Bronze Age, drawing on published literature, archived excavation reports and information sought from archaeological companies. The data will be examined at multiple levels to compare and classify individual structures and site types, to analyse their setting in relation to the landscape and other contemporary sites in their respective areas, to investigate any spatial or chronological trends in their character or distribution, and to establish if any hierarchical organisation of settlement can be discerned. Settlement types and general settlement patterns will be considered in relation to their counterparts in Britain and continental Europe to determine the degree to which developments in Ireland were linked to changes elsewhere during this time. Data collection and analysis will be conducted on a regional basis, in order to monitor the progress and develop the methodology of the research through the course of the project.
Publications:
Armit, I. and Ginn, V. 2007 ‘Beyond the grave: human remains from domestic contexts in Atlantic Scotland’, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, 73.
Murphy, D. and Ginn, V. in prep ‘The Results of the M3 Excavations and Tara’, paper presented at the Tara Symposium, Sunday 25 October 2009, to be published in Symposium Monograph.
Murphy, D. and Ginn, V. in prep ‘Portumna Castle’.
Additional Information:
Education
Queen’s University Belfast (09/2004–10/2005)
MA Archaeology: passed with distinction.
Oxford University, Keble College (10/2000–06/2004)
BA (Hons) Modern History and English Literature: 2.1.
Employment
Freelance archaeological editor and writer of excavation reports and publications since 2005. Worked predominantly with Archaeological Consultancy Services Ltd editing, co-writing, copy-editing, proofreading reports on the M3 and N3, as well as contributing to and editing the Corrstown final excavation report. In-house editing of the M3 Interim Monograph (in press) as well as Life and Death in the Boyne Floodplain: Findings from the Archaeological Excavations along the route of the M4 Motorway (2008: NRA Monograph, Dublin: Wordwell). Worked also with Irish Archaeological Consultancy Ltd editing, copy-editing and proofreading reports on the N18, M3, and N9N10 as well as acting as text co-ordinator and contributor to the N9N10 monograph (in prep).
