Carrowmore
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Carrowmore (from the Gaelic Ceathrú Mór, meaning Great Quarter) is the site of a prehistoric ritual landscape on the Knocknarea (Knock na Ré in Irish) or Cuil Irra Peninsula in County Sligo in the Republic of Ireland.
Around 30 megalithic tombs can be seen in Carrowmore today, and the traces of more (ruined) tombs have been detected. The tombs (in their original state) were almost universally 'dolmen circles' small dolmens with boulder circles of 12 to 15 meters around them. The tombs stand in a roughly oval shape surrounding the largest monument, a cairn called Listoghil. The dolmen 'entrances' - crude double rows of standing stones - usually face the area of the central tomb.
Radiocarbon dates from the long-running survey and excavation project run by Stockholm University has caused controversy amongst Irish archaeologists, particularly those which put the earliest tombs at 5,400 BC, placing them before the (perceived) advent of agriculture in Ireland. Objections included 'old wood' theories, and simply inadequate numbers of dates. The idea of Mesolithic tomb builders is still advocated by Professor Goran Burenhult, who excavated Carrowmore, although this runs in the face of the prevailing view, which generally associates Neolithic farming societies with megalithic sites. Supporters of the early dates sometimes point to similarly ancient dates attributed to chamber tombs in Brittany where Mesolithic microliths have been found in association with at least one passage grave.
Perhaps the key point is that Burenhults work and the work of later researchers places the bulk of the megalith building in Carrowmore at between 4300 and 3500 BC, more in keeping with Neolithic dating but still unusually early. It also upturned the idea that famous Irish prehistoric sites such as Knowth and Newgrange were the earliest in Ireland. Excavation of other tombs in the Cuil Irra area has indicated that although they employed different architectural styles, they were all contemporary with Carrowmore. Recent archaeology by the National Roads Authority for the Inner Relief Road route in Magheraboy near Sligo has shown that a huge causewayed enclosure existed contemporary with Listoghil. The fact that Listoghil (Tomb 51) has dates of about 3600 BC and some indication of earlier activity close by has triggered speculation as to what originally existed at this elevated and central (and perhaps sacred) location.
The sites were surveyed by George Petrie in 1837, who numbered them all.
There has long been debate about how the different tomb types - 'passage tombs', 'court tombs', 'portal dolmens,' and 'wedge tombs' - all of which occur in the area of Carrowmore - should be interpreted. Are they indicative of different 'cultures,' or peoples? Of of different functions for a single community? Perhaps research into DNA or other techniques of the future will finally resolve these questions.
The tombs remained focal points on the landscape for long after they were built. They were re-used and even re-shaped by the people of Bronze Age and Iron Age times.
Almost all the burials at Carrowmore were cremations with inhumations being only found at Listoghil. Even from the cremated remains it is apparent that the dead underwent a complex sequence of treatments, including excarnation and reburial. Grave goods include antler pins with mushroom-shaped heads and stone or clay balls although other tombs outside Carrowmore held entirely different assemblages of items.
The role of megalithic tombs as markers on the landscape and symbolic representations of power has long been considered even more important that their function as a repository for the dead. The prominent positions of the Carrowmore tombs means they were likely designed to be seen from afar.
The small Carrowmore dolmens are unlikely to have ever been covered with stone cairns. Although such ideas were once popular among antiquarians, the discovery of 'settings' of stone and finds of Viking, Roman and Bronze ages dates make it seem likely that if ever such cairns existed, they were destroyed soon after their construction. One tomb, Tomb 27, has a cruciform shape, a feature seen in later tombs like Newgrange or Carrowkeel. The roof - now gone - may have been of stone slabs or corbelled. The right hand sides of cruciformed tombs appear to have had special significance oftentimes being bigger than the left. Cairns such as Listoghil or Queen Maeves tomb or Newgrange may represent a new phase of building of greater scale and ambition, probably requiring the involvement of more workers and greater organisation. One notable feature of cairns are Kerbs. A boulder circle surrounds the tomb, determines its girth, and contains the mound of stones. In the instance of Newgrange, the kerb stones are elaborately decorated with petroglyphs. Liostoghil has a kerb of wonderfully twisted and tortured gneiss boulders, except for occasional marker stones. Such a large limestone 'marker' to the west had deposits of cremated human and animal bone placed behind it.
[edit] Source
Tombs for Hunters, Burenhult, G, British Archaeology 82, 2005, pp22-27 Landscape of the Monuments, Bergh, University of Stockholm, 1995. Altering the Earth. The Origins of Monuments in Britain and Continental Europe, Bradley. Edinburgh: Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. 1993.
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