Aerial Archaeology in Ireland - The Heritage Council

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Whole Landscape Approaches
Perhaps partly because of the relatively high survival of upstanding monuments in a predominantly pastoral landscape, Irish
archaeology can be seen as being strongly rooted in the tradition of investigating visible field monuments defined within wellestablished
types or classes. This remains a strong theme within landscape approaches to Irish archaeology, although much more
effective use of aerial techniques has been developed and used in recent years. As outlined above, aerial archaeology provides
a different perspective that in some ways challenges the traditional approach as reflected, for example, in the publication of
County Inventories.
There is increasing recognition (e.g. Johnson 1999) that traditional site-based approaches cannot adequately capture the full
richness of the historic environment, especially when settlement patterns and field or street patterns and other historic landscape
features are taken into account (Figure 44); and this can apply both to townscape patterns (Swan 1983, 1985) and the rural
landscape (Herity 1987, 1988; Barrett 1992, 1995a, 1997b, 1997/8, 1999; Kelleher 1995; Jones 1998; Cooney et al. 2000).
Figures 44 a-b: Archaeological monuments in their landscape context
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a: A ringfort at Ballybaun townland, in the Burren, Co. Clare, is surrounded by a field system with which it seems to be integrated (CUCAP 16 July 1971)