Hut site, Gowlanes, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Gowlanes, Co. Kerry

High on the southern slopes of Eagles Hill in County Kerry, two ancient structures sit in open mountain terrain, attended only by wind and the remnants of a field system that has not been worked in centuries.

What makes the site quietly arresting is not scale but specificity: these are not vague humps in the ground but deliberate constructions of upright slabs, boulders, and natural outcrop, arranged with evident purpose by people whose daily lives unfolded in a landscape that would be barely recognisable to a modern visitor.

The larger of the two structures is roughly rectangular, measuring 7.7 metres by 4.9 metres, its walls formed from upright slabs averaging half a metre in height, with the northern side incorporating large boulders and natural rock outcrop. At the western end stands a single tall orthostat, an upright standing stone, rising to 1.7 metres, considerably taller than the rest of the walling and suggesting either a structural or perhaps a more symbolic function. About 40 metres to the north sits a second, smaller oval structure, again built from upright slabs and boulders, measuring 5 metres by 3.4 metres. Both sit within the traces of an old field system, which implies a settled, agricultural life rather than purely seasonal use. The Iveragh Peninsula, where this site lies, is unusually rich in such early remains, a consequence of both its ancient settlement patterns and the relative absence of later disturbance on its higher ground. The structures were documented as part of a comprehensive archaeological survey of South Kerry compiled by A. O'Sullivan and J. Sheehan and published by Cork University Press in 1996.

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