In Bronze Age Ireland, the settlement record almost exclusively comprises individual, isolated farmsteads dotted throughout the island (Ginn in Emania, 21: 47–58, 2013; Ginn, Mapping society: Settlement structures in Later Bronze Age Ireland, Archaeopress, 2016). Recent studies have shown that these are incredibly homogeneous, with the nearly 700 excavated examples showing no signs of significant variation in terms of size or density and little in the way of high-status material culture. This conflicts with other evidence from this period, which points to an elite culture inferred from extensive long-distance trading, the manufacture of high-status goods and the construction of massive communal monuments such as hillforts. The latter comprise some of Europe’s largest and most impressive monuments and are often recognised as regional centres of power and authority. Until recently, these monuments have received little attention in Ireland and have rarely been integrated into the broader study of Irish Bronze Age settlement patterns. Indeed, it is at hillforts, which might be regarded as the permanent settlement of an elite and a central space for a disparate community, that we should find larger structures and more nuanced evidence for settlement hierarchies if they exist. This paper aims to collate the settlement evidence within Irish hillforts and other unenclosed upland settlements, integrating this within the broader narrative of the contemporary settlement pattern. It is argued that a clear hierarchy of settlement is apparent at some of the densely settled Irish hillforts, and that these formed central spaces for a disparate community where architecture formed the main arena for the display of status and group identity.

在青铜时代的爱尔兰，定居点记录几乎完全由散布在岛上的个体、孤立的农庄组成（Ginn in Emania, 21 : 47–58, 2013; Ginn,  Mapping Society: Settlement Structures in Later Bronze Age Ireland , Archaeopress, 2016）。最近的研究表明，这些化石的同质性令人难以置信，近 700 个出土样本在大小或密度方面没有显示出显着变化的迹象，也没有什么高级物质文化的迹象。这与这一时期的其他证据相冲突，这些证据表明，精英文化是从广泛的长途贸易、高地位商品的制造和山丘堡垒等大型公共纪念碑的建造中推断出来的。后者包括欧洲一些最大、最令人印象深刻的纪念碑，通常被认为是区域权力和权威中心。直到最近，这些纪念碑在爱尔兰还没有受到多少关注，也很少被纳入对爱尔兰青铜时代定居模式的更广泛的研究中。事实上，正是在山堡，它可能被视为精英阶层的永久定居点和不同社区的中心空间，我们应该找到更大的结构和更细致的证据来证明定居点等级制度（如果存在的话）。本文旨在整理爱尔兰山堡和其他非封闭高地定居点内的定居证据，并将其纳入当代定居模式的更广泛叙述中。有人认为，在一些人口稠密的爱尔兰山堡中，明显存在明显的定居等级，这些山堡形成了不同社区的中心空间，其中建筑构成了展示地位和群体身份的主要场所。