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British Academy/Royal Irish Academy Joint Symposium

Anglo-Saxon/Irish Relations before the Vikings

The 'Sand-Dune Sites': evidence for pre-Viking trade?

David Griffiths (Oxford)

Around the Irish Sea and on the west coast of Ireland are a number of sandy coastal locations which have produced early medieval material, principally metalwork. Coinage and other exotica imply long-distance trading links and have prompted the idea of 'beach-markets' for the period AD 400-800. These discoveries, which were in most cases unstratified, are difficult to quantify and were often made alongside material from other periods. This paper will review the evidence for settlement in the coastal margin and attempt to set the early medieval material from these 'Sand-Dune Sites' into its landscape and economic context.