Stories from a Shifting Landscape

Stories from a Shifting Landscape is the latest in a series of StoryMaps showcasing some of the incredible archaeological discoveries made in advance of Transport Infrastructure Ireland national road schemes. It takes as its subject more than 100 archaeological sites discovered between 1996 and 2007 on three projects between Nenagh, Co. Tipperary and Limerick City. These excavations produced evidence from every era of human habitation on the island of Ireland— and much of it was of national, and even international, importance.

Making use of spectacular aerial images, interactive maps, digital records and audio-visual material, the StoryMap winds its way through the region’s human history by taking the varied and ever-changing local landscape as its backdrop. From moving bogs and vanishing lakes all the way upland, it reveals the new settlements and artefacts uncovered, sharing how the archaeologists interpreted it the information uncovered.

Readers will encounter the story of remarkable places like Tullahedy, the unique Neolithic site that produced an avalanche of stone axes, and Annaholty, where an Iron Age trackway was so well preserved that the wear and tear caused by ancient wheels could still be seen. There is this and much more besides; clusters of Bronze Age houses, hosts of Early Medieval enclosures and farms of the Anglo-Normans all form part of this journey through one of Ireland’s richest archaeological regions.