Learning Outcomes:
Having taken this module, you will be expected to:
1. Understand the chronological framework underpinning our knowledge of Ireland's past;
2. Be familiar with key Irish archaeological complexes, monuments, artefacts and landscapes
3. Be capable of critically evaluating pivotal times of special achievement and change in Ireland's past;
4. Have developed your writing, reading, critical thinking, verbal communication and study skills
5. Be able to summarise research, use other's research to support an argument and demonstrate an awareness that there can be many 'right' ways to answer a question
Indicative Module Content:
Wk 1: Introduction to the module & Introduction to reading the Irish past through objects, sites and landscapes
Wk 2: Palaeolithic & Mesolithic Ireland
Wk 3: Early Neolithic Ireland - the arrival of farming
Wk 4: Neolithic monuments & The landscape of the Céide Fields , Co. Mayo
Wk 5: Change & continuity in the earlier Bronze Age & Case study: Irish Rock Art
Wk 6: Defence & Prestige in the later Bronze Age? & Ireland's wetland landscapes
Wk 7: Iron Age Ireland: an enigmatic millennium & The royal landscape of Rathcroghan, Co. Roscommon
Wk 8: Special lectures/learning activities focused on skills required to complete assessments
Wk 9: Christianity and early medieval Ireland & Case study: Early medieval dress, ornament & identity
Wk 10: Later medieval Ireland & Case study: Viking & medieval Dublin
Wk 11: Post-medieval and early modern Ireland
Wk 12: The archaeology of traditional farmland