A geophysical survey at Dún Ailinne, County Kildare, Ireland

Dún Ailinne, in County Kildare, was an important center of ceremonial and ritual activity in the Irish Iron Age (600 b.c.-a.d. 400). The site is located on a hill and is surrounded by an earthen bank and ditch. Excavation of the summit 35 years ago revealed a series of timber structures that were arguably the focus of the site's Iron Age use. This early research examined only ca. 10% of the site's interior, so from 2006 to 2008 a new program of research employed a targeted topographic survey and a magnetometer survey to determine if there was evidence of additional features inside the bank and ditch, or whether the rest of the site beyond the summit was empty. The results show that the area outside of the excavated summit was characterized by many and varied features of archaeological interest, including additional enclosures and likely structures of the Iron Age and both earlier and later periods. These data allow us to better understand the use of Dun Ailinne during its Iron Age florescence and provide us with directions for future archaeological research.