Woodstown Viking-Age settlement, Co. Waterford, Ireland

Test excavations on the route of the proposed N25 Waterford City Bypass in 2003 identified significant archaeological remains at a site in Woodstown townland on the southern bank of the River Suir. Subsequent limited investigations (geophysical survey and excavation) have shown that the Vikings enclosed the landward side of a large river-side site with a substantial ditch and a bank. In this defended area houses were built, ships were repaired and craft and industry carried out. One of the most significant finds was a richly-furnished warrior grave. The variety of artefactual material recovered from the site reflects the range of the Viking trading networks in the ninth century and include amber from the Baltic, silver coins from the Near East and weapons from Scandinavia. The artefactual evidence indicates that Woodstown was abandoned as a settlement in the early tenth-century. The dataset contains supplementary material to the monograph that has been published on the site. It also contains revised versions of three papers discussing the early medieval toponymy of the area and the political and social background to Viking settlement in the lower Suir valley and related regions; previously published on www.vikingwaterford.com.