While it would seem probable that some ringforts may have seen continuation in the Later Medieval period as adapted or imitation mottes it seems doubtful if the continuation that ringforts were still being built on a more general scale throughout the country, and the evidence put forward for such a theory would appear quite slim. The excavations which support such a theory, most notably Rynne's excavation at Shannon Airport of Garrynamona which is suggestive of a 15th-century ringfort being constructed, have failed to win any form of widespread popular acceptance. The most common theory however is that ringforts are the product of the later half of the first millennium, a theory that has generally been supported by the excavated evidence of the period, and one that has seen remarkable if slightly ambitious definition from Matthew Stout. In his work "The Irish Ringfort", Stout has sought to use the radiocarbon and dendrochronological dates from 114 ringforts and associated sites to find an overall date pattern for the use of ringforts; and through this has placed over half of all ringforts in the period 540 AD to 884 AD with two-thirds falling within the 600 AD to 900 AD period. While this method has brought the dating of the ringfort phase of Irish history to an ever more accurate level, certain problems do exist with his analysis. Firstly, as he notes himself, the research is overly biased towards Ulster (64% of dated sites were from Ulster), and the dates come from a very small sample of sites relative to the total number of ringforts. Finally, Stout's use of radiocarbon dating is to one standard deviation, which means that there is an approximately one third chance that the data offered is inaccurate by up to 100 years on either side. Yet despite these difficulties, Stout's analysis has to a large extent brought a degree of finality to the debate of the dating and use of ringforts, with it being more or less certain that the vast majority were probably occupied and constructed in the second half of the first millennium. His analysis is further supported by Gerald of Wales who commented that ringforts in Ireland, were known as Daneforts, and that they had been abandoned by the late 12th century when he was in Ireland. It has traditionally been understood that the ringfort was a dispersed farmstead, the home of a free man and his family and the centre of a mixed agricultural economy to a large extent dominated by cattle. This view has been somewhat refined, with evidence suggesting that not all ringforts were farmsteads, but rather that ringforts appeared to have fulfilled a variety of other functions as well.