A Social Archaeology of Identity in Two Ulster Plantation Settlements

This thesis examines the historical archaeology of personal and social factors in two seventeenth-century rural settlements on English plantation holdings in Northern Ireland. The case-study sites, Dungiven Priory and Salterstown, are both in Co. Londonderry. The evidence from these sites is considered as it relates to ethnicity, gender, life course, and power within the context of a wider socio-political framework of the Ulster Plantation. The case studies themselves are re-examinations or reinterpretations of excavations and surveys conducted in the 1980s. This thesis reviews and reassesses these older datasets, interrogating them with the aim of learning to parse new findings from archaeological and historical data. An auxiliary aim of the thesis is to examine its case studies, and the conclusions that they suggest, in terms of contemporary public memory and popular perception. This thesis explores how such community heritage might be approached by academic research. These considerations are especially important for contested sites and pasts, such as is the case with the former Ulster Plantation.