Ringforts, known in Irish as raths when built primarily from earthen banks and ditches, were the most common form of rural settlement in early medieval Ireland, dating broadly from around the sixth to the twelfth centuries. They served as enclosed farmsteads, the raised banks offering a degree of protection for a family and their livestock rather than functioning as military fortifications in any serious sense. Clare has an unusually dense concentration of them, and the county's varied soils and field patterns mean they survive in a wide range of conditions, some worn nearly flat, others still carrying banks of considerable height.