INSIGHT Magazine - Early Christian County Down

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The patterns of settlement in Early Christian County Down

Table 18

Area (km²) of each Land classification within each altitude zone

Land quality
.

Altitude zones in metres

.

.

0 - 30

30 - 60

60 - 90

90 - 150

150 - 210

210 - 300

300 +

High

A

28.4

35.3

13.4

4.3

0

0

0

Medium

B1

150.8

102.5

63.4

72.2

0.4

0

0

B2

67.3

45.5

26.9

6.2

0

0

0

B3

185.5

192.2

273.2

360.7

25.9

0.02

0

B4

16.9

38.3

47.9

142.4

114.3

22.4

0.1

Poor

C1

0

0.1

1.6

5.8

36.7

68

12.9

C2

11.3

0

4.8

1.1

0

0

0

Very poor

D

0

0

0

0

0.6

10.3

95.9

High / medium

A/B1

36

27.9

4.5

0.3

0

0

0

A/B2

2.1

40.2

16

2

0

0

0

Poor / medium

C/B

22.6

5.3
0

0

0

0

0

Other

.

22.7

5.3

0.6

0.1

0

0

0

Again the point layer, representing each Early Christian site, was added to the Land Classification / altitude overlay to calculate the number of sites within each category (Table 19) and finally a chi-squared test was applied to highlight any significant correlations (Table 20).

Table 19

Total number of sites within each Land / altitude category

Land quality	.	*Altitude zones in metres*
.	.	0 - 30	30 - 60	60 - 90	90 - 150	150 - 210	210 - 300	300 +
High	A	11	14	19	2	0	0	0
Medium	B1	65	59	48	80	0	0	0
	B2	9	21	21	2	0	0	0
	B3	74	138	209	398	24	0	0
	B4	2	6	27	114	58	3	0
Poor	C1	0	0	0	1	7	2	0
Poor	C2	1	0	2	2	0	0	0
Very poor	D	0	0	0	0	0	0	1
High / medium	A/B1	29	24	4	0	0	0	0
High / medium	A/B2	0	23	17	4	0	0	0
Poor / medium	C/B	6	0	0	0	0	0	0
Other	.	6	3	0	0	0	0	0

Table 20

Chi-squared values for sites within each Land / altitude category

Land quality

.

Altitude zones in metres

.

.

0 - 30

30 - 60

60 - 90

90 - 150

150 - 210

210 - 300

300 +

High

A

2.7

3.1

13.1

0.2

0.0

0.0

0.0

Medium

B1

9.6

0.5

1.6

26.0

0.3

0.0

0.0

B2

26.4

2.1

1.0

0.9

0.0

0.0

0.0

B3

15.9

2.3

7.7

127.2

3.6

0.1

0.0

B4

7.0

13.7

0.3

6.4

2.8

8.8

0.1

Poor

C1

0.0

0.1

1.0

1.9

11.3

39.1

8.1

C2

5.3

0.0

0.4

2.4

0.0

0.0

0.0

Very poor

D

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.4

6.5

58.6

High / medium

A/B1

1.7

2.3

0.5

0.2

0.0

0.0

0.0

A/B2

1.3

0.2

4.7

6.2

0.0

0.0

0.0

Poor / medium

C/B

4.8

3.3

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

Other

.

96.8

0.0

0.4

0.1

0.0

0.0

0.0

(Chi-squared values become significant at 3.8)

Again these results demonstrate that altitude is the overriding factor in determining the location of Early Christian settlement. Significantly higher than expected numbers of settlements occur only within the 60m – 90m and 90m – 150m altitude zones and there are no lower than expected results within these areas. This is consistent with the results of the Soil map analysis and demonstrates that while still considering the quality of the land on which they were settling, the Early Christian farmers were determined to settle within the middle altitude zone.

CORINE analysis

Figures 17 and 18 show the distribution of Early Christian sites on the CORINE map.

Figure 17

Distribution of Early Christian sites on the CORINE map

Figure 18

Distribution of Early Christian sites on the CORINE map

From Table 21, which summarises the results, we can see that the highest density of sites are on the good pasture and agricultural categories of land, each with 0.8 sites per km². The chi-squared analysis confirms that there is a significantly high proportion of sites in these areas. Overall 44% of sites are located on agricultural land, but this also covers by far the largest area of County Down, at 33%. Perhaps surprisingly the land suitable for use for arable is not as popular as we may have expected; the site density is 0.7 per km², only slightly higher than that of mixed pasture at 0.6 per km².

Table 21

Summary of totals for each CORINE classification

Type of land cover

Area of land cover (km²)

% of total area of Co. Down

% of sites within each CORINE classification

Density of sites per km²

Chi-squared value

Artificial surfaces

101.7

4

3.8

0.6

0.3

Arable land

131.5

5.2

5.6

0.7

0.4

Agricultural areas

882.8

34.9

44.3

0.8

37.4

Forest

46.5

1.8

0.9

0.3

7.3

Scrub and grassland

189.4

7.5

0.4

0.03

103.8

Beaches, dunes & sand

6.6

0.3

0

0

-

Wetlands

83.1

3.3

0.7

0.1

32.6

Bodies of water

120.9

4.8

0.8

0.1

51.6

Good pasture

503.7

19.9

26.1

0.8

28.8

Poor pasture

108.9

4.3

3.3

0.5

3.6

Mixed pasture

351.5

13.9

14.2

0.6

0.06

(Chi-squared values become significant at 3.8)

Table 22

The number of sites in each CORINE classification

	Artificial surfaces	Arable	Agricul tural	Forest	Scrub	Wetlands	Bodies of Water	Good pasture	Poor pasture	Mixed pasture
Rath	32	67	496	8	2	3	1	320	27	165
Probable rath	2	6	22	0	0	0	0	14	2	7
Platform rath	0	2	13	1	0	0	0	15	2	4
Raised rath	1	1	6	0	0	0	0	5	1	1
Rath and souterrain	1	1	6	0	0	0	0	2	0	3
Large rath	0	0	2	0	0	0	0	3	1	0
Conjoined rath	0	0	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Rath pair	0	0	5	0	0	0	0	2	2	1
Bivallate rath	4	0	11	0	0	0	0	4	0	0
Multivallate rath	0	1	2	1	0	0	0	2	0	0
Large enclosure	3	2	17	0	0	0	0	8	0	3
Cashel	0	0	28	2	3	0	0	3	10	16
Crannog	0	2	12	0	1	6	10	7	2	6
Mound	0	0	3	1	0	0	0	4	0	3
Souterrain	4	2	33	1	0	0	0	8	2	7
*Ecclesiastical sites*
Pre-Viking	5	0	7	0	0	0	1	2	0	1
Pre-Norman	5	2	7	0	0	0	0	1	1	1
Probably pre-Norman	1	0	8	0	0	1	0	1	1	0

Total number of sites	58	86	680	14	6	10	12	401	51	218

Table 23

Chi-squared values for each CORINE classification

Artificial

Arable

Agricul
tural

Forest

Scrub

Wetlands

Bodies of Water

Good pasture

Poor pasture

Mixed pasture

Chi-sq.

Rath

3.8

1.2

27.1

7.8

80.3

31.2

51.7

41.1

9.5

0.5

254.7

Probable rath

0

3.8

0.6

1

4

1.7

2.5

1.1

0

0

15.5

Platform rath

1.5

0

0

0.1

2.7

1.2

1.8

7.8

0.1

0.2

16.7

Raised rath

0.3

0.1

0.1

0.3

1.1

0.5

0.7

1.3

0.2

0.5

5.4

Rath and souterrain

0.4

0.1

0.5

0.2

0.9

0.4

0.6

0.1

0.6

0.7

5.8

Large rath

0.2

0.3

0

0.1

0.4

0.2

0.3

2.7

2.1

0.8

7.1

Conjoined rath

0.1

0.1

2.4

0

0.1

0.1

0.1

0.4

0.1

0.3

4.9

Rath pair

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.2

0.7

0.3

0.5

0

5.7

0.1

9.2

Bivallate rath

13.7

1

2.8

0.3

1.4

0.6

0.9

0

0.8

2.6

24.1

Multivallate rath

0.2

1.5

0

7.1

0.4

0.2

0.3

0.5

0.2

0.8

11.3

Large enclosure

2.1

0

2.6

0.6

2.4

1.1

1.6

0.3

1.4

0.6

13.3

Cashel

2.5

3.2

1.8

0.6

0.5

2

2.9

7.1

20

6.3

47.9

Crannog

1.9

0.1

1.1

0.8

1.7

13.2

27.5

0.5

0

0

47.7

Mound

0.4

0.6

0.2

3.1

0.8

0.4

0.5

1.5

0.5

1.4

9.4

Souterrain

1.3

0.3

8.5

0

4.2

1.9

2.7

1

0.1

0.1

20.1

Ecclesiastical sites

Pre-Viking

29.4

0.8

0.4

0.3

1.2

0.5

0.1

0.5

0.7

0.7

35.5

Pre-Norman

27.2

1.4

0.2

0.3

1.3

0.6

0.8

1.7

0.1

0.8

34.2

Probably pre-Norman

0.6

0.6

3.4

0.2

0.9

0.9

0.6

0.8

0.5

1.7

10.9

Individual values become significant at 3.8 Overall chi-squared vales become significant at 16.92

Table 22 shows the distribution of each site type on the CORINE land cover categories and the results of applying the chi-squared test to this can be seen in Table 23. From this perhaps the most surprising result is that none of the site types demonstrate a significant preference for the highest quality, arable land. A number of the site types, raths, platform raths and souterrains, are concentrated on the medium quality agricultural and good pasture land that we might expect to be occupied by a farming community. Reflecting the summary results in Table 22, we can see that raths, probable raths and souterrains, carefully avoid the poorer quality areas, today in forestry, scrub, wetlands and poor pasture. The statistically significant result for the multivallate raths within the forestry category is produced by only the one site. Not surprisingly, there is a significantly high proportion of crannogs within both the wetlands and bodies of water and cashels, following the trends established in both the soil and land classification analyses, show a predominance of sites on the poor and mixed pasture. More surprising is the fact that two of the rath pairs are also located on this poor quality pasture, with a third on the mixed pasture. Another surprising result is that within this CORINE analysis, none of the ecclesiastical sites demonstrate a strong preference for any of the land types, except that both pre-Viking and pre-Norman sites are now located in areas designated as ‘artificial surfaces’, i.e. towns. This may indicate the economic role which the church came to play in Early Christian society, leading to towns growing up around them, such as at Downpatrick or Bangor.

Overall this CORINE analysis confirms the results of the previous soil and land classification analyses.

CORINE categories in each altitude zone

As with both the Soil map and the Land Classification map, the CORINE map was overlaid with the altitude map to calculate the quantity of each classification within each altitude zone (Table 24).

Figure 19

Digital elevation model of the County Down CORINE map

Continue to next section

Type of land cover	Area of land cover (km²)	% of total area of Co. Down	% of sites within each CORINE classification	Density of sites per km²	Chi-squared value
Artificial surfaces	101.7	4	3.8	0.6	0.3
Arable land	131.5	5.2	5.6	0.7	0.4
Agricultural areas	882.8	34.9	44.3	0.8	37.4
Forest	46.5	1.8	0.9	0.3	7.3
Scrub and grassland	189.4	7.5	0.4	0.03	103.8
Beaches, dunes & sand	6.6	0.3	0	0	-
Wetlands	83.1	3.3	0.7	0.1	32.6
Bodies of water	120.9	4.8	0.8	0.1	51.6
Good pasture	503.7	19.9	26.1	0.8	28.8
Poor pasture	108.9	4.3	3.3	0.5	3.6
Mixed pasture	351.5	13.9	14.2	0.6	0.06