Buried remains near Armagh reveal a prehistoric center of unusual scale, with hundreds of constructions, metal production, ritual spaces, and an organization that broadens the debate about Europe’s earliest urban communities.
Under fields near the city of Armagh, Northern Ireland, archaeological surveys have revealed the scale of a center built over 3,000 years ago, with residential areas, metal production, large circular buildings, and spaces designated for ceremonies.
The research, published on June 30, 2026 in the scientific journal Antiquity, indicates that Haughey’s Fort was much more than an isolated fortification on a hilltop.
Around 1200 BC, the place functioned as the core of an organized landscape, where housing, specialized work, public gatherings, and ritual activities occupied different sectors.
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Archaeologists identified 204 possible circular wooden constructions, in addition to buildings that reached about 30 meters in diameter.
Around the settlement, earth structures previously interpreted separately began to be seen as parts of an enclosure approximately 109 hectares, an area compared by researchers to 155 football fields.
The word “city,” in this case, does not describe paved streets, stone buildings, or urban administration similar to today.
The authors classify Haughey’s Fort as a proto-urban center, a term applied to settlements that already exhibited population concentration, division of functions, collective constructions, and trade networks, although they did not gather all the characteristics of later historical cities.
Technology revealed buried structures in Haughey’s Fort
Much of the complex did not appear after the opening of a single large-scale excavation.
The team combined remote sensing, geophysical surveys, targeted excavations, and a new analysis of records produced in previous research.
Among the techniques employed were lidar, capable of recording small differences in relief, and magnetic gradiometry.
This second method detects changes in the soil’s magnetic field caused by ditches, post holes, burned areas, and other marks left by human occupation.
Ground-penetrating radar also helped observe elements that remain below the surface.
After gathering the results, the researchers selected specific points to excavate and compare the equipment images with actual structures.
The combination of these tools allowed the reconstruction of the design of a landscape that, seen only at ground level, largely resembles rural fields.
Fences, ditches, houses, avenues, and buildings have disappeared, but their foundations and changes in the terrain remained recorded underground.
The 204 houses are possible wooden constructions
The number 204 does not correspond to entire houses removed from the ground.
These are anomalies detected by geophysical surveys, interpreted by the authors as probable circular wooden structures.
This care is necessary because only part of the site has been excavated.
The shape, size, and position of the signals found support the interpretation that many of them were domestic buildings, but do not allow stating that all functioned as dwellings or were occupied at the same time.
Even so, the concentration exceeds what would normally be expected in a hillfort from the same period.
According to the study, the distribution of possible constructions points to a dense and organized settlement, not just a space used occasionally in defense or ceremonial situations.
Haughey’s Fort had about 350 meters in diameter and was originally delimited by three sets of earth banks and ditches.
Previous excavations placed its occupation between approximately 1170 and 770 BC, a period that covers part of the Late Bronze Age and the transition to the Iron Age.
Wooden constructions rarely survive intact for millennia.
When posts rot, however, the holes filled with different soil can remain visible to geophysical instruments or during excavations.
It is the repetition of these marks that allows archaeologists to estimate the shape of ancient circular walls.
The overall design can be identified even when no boards, roofs, or complete floors remain.
30-meter circular buildings had a collective function
Among the possible residences, researchers found signs of much larger circular constructions.
Some reached up to 30 meters in diameter, a size that led the team to interpret them as institutional or community spaces.
A structure of this size would require a large amount of wood, coordinated labor, and knowledge about roof support.
It would also occupy a much larger area than a conventional domestic dwelling.
The study does not precisely determine everything that happened inside these buildings.
The hypothesis presented by the authors is that they could host meetings, ceremonies, parties, or decisions involving larger groups of the community.
The presence of these constructions reinforces the interpretation that Haughey’s Fort concentrated collective activities.
Instead of a scattered gathering of families, the place brought together dwellings and spaces whose construction depended on shared planning.
109-hectare enclosure expanded the scale of the complex
Another change came from the analysis of the earth structures known as Creeveroe Earthworks.
Previously seen as separate elements, they were reinterpreted as parts of a large enclosure surrounding Haughey’s Fort.
The perimeter covered approximately 109 hectares, equivalent to 1.09 square kilometers.
The University of Glasgow compared this area to about 155 football fields and classified the set among the largest known archaeological monuments in Ireland and Great Britain.
The size does not mean that the entire area was filled with houses.
The larger enclosure included circulation spaces, productive sectors, open lands, monuments, and paths connecting different points of the landscape.
By observing the set, researchers identified a form of zoning.
Haughey’s Fort concentrated settlement, feasting, and craft production, while other nearby sites presented evidence more directly associated with ceremonies.
This separation of functions is one of the factors used to describe the complex as proto-urban.
Different activities were gathered in the same landscape, but they did not occur in an undifferentiated manner.
Bronze, gold, and feasting reveal specialized production
Excavations carried out at Haughey’s Fort found traces related to working with bronze and gold.
Molds, residues, and small fragments indicate the presence of craftsmen capable of producing objects that required temperature control and knowledge about metals.
Specialized scale manufacturing would depend on access to raw materials, fuels, and experienced workers.
Objects classified as high status also suggest that certain groups had greater access to goods and resources.
Animal remains and other evidence were interpreted as signs of large-scale feasting.
These gatherings could unite food, alliances, displays of power, and ceremonial practices, although the function of each event cannot be recovered solely from the preserved materials.
Pieces associated with the Iberian Peninsula and Central Europe show that the community was not isolated.
The study relates these objects to long-distance exchange networks that crossed different parts of Europe during the Bronze Age.
This does not necessarily mean that residents of Haughey’s Fort traveled personally across this entire extent.
Goods and techniques could circulate in stages, passing between intermediary communities before reaching Ireland.
Artificial pool received weapons, bones, and offerings
A few meters from Haughey’s Fort was the King’s Stables, an artificial pool constructed during the same period.
Despite the modern name, the place was not a facility used to keep horses.
Excavations located molds related to weapon manufacturing, animal remains, and fragments of human bones deposited at the site.
The arrangement of these materials led archaeologists to interpret the pool as a space for ritual activity.
A ceremonial avenue, accompanied by wooden palisades, connected the fort area to the reservoir.
The authors consider it likely that the path was used for formal movements or processions during specific occasions.
The route did not only serve to facilitate passage between two points.
Tall fences could control the direction of movement, limit the view of the surroundings, and make the arrival at the pool part of the ceremonial experience.
While Haughey’s Fort gathered houses, craft production, and banquets, King’s Stables concentrated ritual deposits.
The physical connection between both shows that the functions were separate but integrated within the same system.
Navan Fort gained importance centuries later
The complex is embedded in the prehistoric landscape of Navan, later associated with Emain Macha, described in Irish traditions as an ancient capital of Ulster.
Navan Fort became known mainly for its occupation and importance during the Iron Age.
The new study shifts part of the attention to earlier centuries when Haughey’s Fort already functioned as a regional center.
Around 1200 BC, the construction of the fort marked, according to the authors, the formation of a nucleus of power, production, and ritual.
The settlement preceded the period of greatest prominence of Navan Fort and helps explain how that landscape acquired political and symbolic importance.
The monuments do not need to have functioned all in the same way or during exactly the same interval.
The research, however, identifies sufficient chronological overlaps and physical connections to analyze them as parts of an organized landscape.
Haughey’s Fort is described as a proto-urban center
The classification does not automatically transform Haughey’s Fort into the first city in Europe.
Other older European and Mediterranean settlements already exhibited high population density, labor specialization, and planning.
The study’s argument is more specific.
In Western Europe, the complex represents one of the clearest examples of a Bronze Age community that brought together, in the same territory, concentrated housing, specialized production, distant trade, collective buildings, and ritual areas.
For James O’Driscoll, from the University of Glasgow, the evidence reveals a scale of organization and connectivity that had not been fully recognized in Ireland of that period.
Patrick Gleeson, from Queen’s University Belfast, states that the monuments need to be understood as a single system, not as isolated sites.
The study also changes the image of a Bronze Age Ireland formed only by small farming groups scattered across the territory.
At least at that point near Armagh, there was the capacity to mobilize workers, erect enclosures, build monumental buildings, and maintain specialized activities.
Subsoil still holds answers about the population
The surveys reveal the probable layout of the settlement, but do not inform how many people lived there.
To calculate the population, it would be necessary to know how many structures were residences, which existed at the same time, and how many inhabitants occupied each construction.
The exact duration of the large buildings also remains open.
Some may have replaced previous constructions, while others might have operated simultaneously.
New excavations could test the interpretations produced by the magnetic maps, identify floors and fireplaces, collect materials for dating, and verify if the different sectors really operated in the same phase.
Technology can show where the buried marks are, but only the combination of prospecting, excavation, and material analysis can explain who built this center and how life was organized within its boundaries.
