Prehistoric Ireland

The anaerobic conditions sometimes preserve organic materials exceptionally well, as with a number of bog bodies, a Mesolithic wicker fish-trap,[3] and a Bronze Age textile with delicate tassels of horse hair.Some sites as far north as Sweden inhabited earlier than 10,000 years ago suggest that humans might have used glacial termini as places from which to hunt migratory game.These factors and ecological changes brought humans to the edge of the northernmost ice-free zones of continental Europe by the onset of the Holocene (11.5ky ago) and this included regions close to Ireland.[13] In contrast, a flint worked by a human found in 1968 at Mell, Drogheda, is much older, probably well pre-dating 70,000 BC, and this is normally regarded as having been carried to Ireland on an ice sheet, probably from what is now the bottom of the Irish Sea.[15] A British site on the eastern coast of the Irish Sea, dated to 11,000 BC, indicated people in the area were eating a marine diet including shellfish.During the Younger Dryas, sea levels continued to rise, and an ice-free land bridge between Great Britain and Ireland never returned.[25] The human population hunted with spears, arrows and harpoons tipped with small stone blades called microliths, while supplementing their diet with gathered nuts, fruit and berries.Surviving artefacts include small microlith blades and points, and later larger stone tools and weapons, in particular the versatile Bann flake.By 5100 BC there is evidence of dairy practices in southern England, and modern English cattle appear to be derived from "T1 Taurids" that were domesticated in the Aegean region shortly after the onset of the Holocene.[25] From around 4500 BC a Neolithic package that included cereal cultivars, housing culture (similar to those of the same period in Scotland) and stone monuments arrived in Ireland.The earliest clear proof of farmers in Ireland or Great Britain is from Ferriter's Cove on the Dingle Peninsula, where a flint knife, cattle bones and a sheep's tooth were found and dated to c. 4350 BC.The largest of these tombs were clearly places of religious and ceremonial importance to the Neolithic population, and were probably communal graves used over a long period.These megalithic tombs, more than 1,200 of which are now known, can be divided for the most part into four broad groups, all of which would originally have been covered with earth, that in many cases has been eroded away to leave the impressive stone frameworks: The theory that these four groups of monuments were associated with four separate waves of invading colonists still has its adherents today, but the growth in population that made them possible need not have been the result of colonisation: it may simply have been the natural consequence of the introduction of agriculture.The products of axe factories next to sources of porcellanite, an especially good stone, were traded across Ireland; the main ones were Tievebulliagh and Rathlin Island, both in County Antrim.As an example of the exceptional preservation sometimes possible in items found in anaerobic bogs, part of a finely woven bag with circular handles has survived; it used reedy plant material wound round thin strips of wood.Swords, axes, daggers, hatchets, halberds, awls, drinking utensils and horn-shaped trumpets are just some of the items that have been unearthed at Bronze Age sites.Another of Europe's best-preserved copper mines has been discovered at Mount Gabriel in County Cork, which was worked for several centuries in the middle of the second millennium.It is thought that most of the 1,200-odd crannogs in Ireland were begun in the Bronze Age, although many sites seem to have been used, continuously or intermittently, over very long periods, even into medieval times.[48] The rather earlier Dunaverney flesh-hook (perhaps 1050–900 BC) is suggestive of a culture where elite feasting was important, and reflects influence from continental Europe; very large riveted bronze cauldrons were also made.[49] Large numbers of bronze weapons were produced, and typical sword shapes changed from shorter ones for stabbing and thrusting on foot, to longer ones, perhaps for a mounted warrior to slash with.[50] This is one example of a Dowris Phase design type originating in the Hallstatt culture of continental Europe, probably transmitted via southern Britain; chapes for scabbards is another.This view has been somewhat upset by the recent carbon-dating of the wood shaft of a very elegant iron spearhead found in the River Inny near Lackan, which gave a date of between 811 and 673 BC.[55] Alternatively, many hold the view that this happened with the bearers of the Bell Beaker culture, probably Indo-European speaking, reaching Ireland during the earlier stage of the Bronze Age.These vary greatly in size and function, with smaller ones a single-family farmstead (with slaves), or merely an enclosure for animals, and larger ones clearly having a wider political and military significance.[63] There are several ringforts in the complex topping the Hill of Tara, which seems to have its origins in the late Iron Age, although the site also includes a Neolithic passage grave and other earlier tombs.[64] Other large-scale constructions, requiring a good degree of social organization, include linear earthworks such as the Black Pig's Dyke and Cliadh Dubh, probably representing boundaries, and acting as hindrances to cattle-raids, and "toghers" or wooden trackways across boggy areas,[62] of which the best-known is the Corlea Trackway, a corduroy road dated to 148-147 BC, and about a kilometre long and some three metres wide.Thomas Charles-Edwards coined the phrase "Irish Dark Age" to refer to a period of apparent economic and cultural stagnation in late prehistoric Ireland, lasting from c. 100 BC to c. AD 300.Cashel Man died violently about 2500-2000 BC in the early Bronze Age, and is one of the possible ritual killings; it is now thought these were deposed kings sacrificed after being seen to fail in their rule, perhaps after crop failures.However, from the foundation of the Dublin Royal Irish Academy in 1785 there was a local rival, which became the main destination of objects that were newly-found, or appeared on the market.