From Chiefdom to State in Early Ireland

D. Blair Gibson is a professor in the Department of Anthropology at El Camino College and the director of the college's Anthropology Museum. He has published articles in a number of journals, including the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology and the Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium. He is the editor of two books, Tribe and Polity in Late Prehistoric Europe (with Michael Geselowitz) and Celtic Chiefdom, Celtic State (with Bettina Arnold).

• 1. Theoretical considerations; 2. The climate and geology of Clare; 3. Clare's chiefdoms at the dawn of history; 4. An early medieval chiefdom of northern Clare; 5. Reconstructing the social order of Irish chiefdoms through settlement; 6. Of settlements and boundaries: reconstructing the chiefdom of Tulach Commáin; 7. The rulers of Tulach Commáin; 8. The world of Brian Boroimhe; 9. The world of Caithrém Thoirdhealbhaigh; 10. The political topography of late medieval Clare; 11. An overview of the social and political systems of Thomond.

'The title of this handsomely produced book will have specialists in the archaeology and history of protohistoric and (early) medieval Ireland salivating.' Anna Leone, Antiquity