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The prehistory of Ireland has been pieced together from archaeological and genetic evidence; it begins with the first evidence of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers settling in Ireland around 7000 BC and finishes with the start of the historical record, around AD 400. The prehistoric period covers the Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age societies of Ireland. For many European countries a historical record begins when the Romans invaded; however, as Ireland was not invaded by the Romans its historical record starts later, with the coming of Christianity.
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During the Pleistocene ice age, ice sheets more than 3000 metres thick scoured the landscape of Ireland, pulverizing rock and bone, and eradicating all evidence of early human settlements during the Glenavian warm period (human remains pre-dating the last glaciation have been uncovered in the extreme south of Britain, which largely escaped the advancing ice sheets).
During the Last Glacial Maximum (c. 16,000 BC), Ireland was an Arctic wasteland, or tundra. The Midland General Glaciation ('Midlandian period') which was originally thought to cover two thirds of the country with ice.[1] Subsequent evidence from the past 50 years has shown this to be untrue and recent publications (Greenwood and Clark, 2009) suggests that ice went off the southern coast of Ireland. The early part of the Holocene had a climate that was inhospitable to most European animals and plants. Human occupation was unlikely, though fishing possible.
During the period between 15,500 and 10,000 BC a warming trend and a cool period allowed the rehabitation of northern areas of Europe by nomadic hunter gatherers. Genetic evidence suggests this reoccupation began in southwestern Europe and faunal remains suggest a refugia in Iberia that extended up into Southern France. The original attraction to the north during the pre-boreal period would be species like Reindeer and Aurochs. Some sites as far north as Sweden >10,000 years ago suggest that humans might have used glacial termini as places from which they hunted migratory game.
These factors and ecology change brought humans to the edge of European northern-most ice free zones by the onset of the holocene and this included regions close to Ireland.
There is no evidence that humans occupied Ireland at this time, but on the eastern side of the Irish Sea one site dated to the 11th millennium BC was discovered that indicated people were in the area eating a marine diet including shellfish. It is possible that humans did occupy the region but found few resources outside of coastal shellfishing and acorns and did not continually occupy the region.
As the northern glacier retreated, so did sea levels rise with water draining into an inland sea where the Irish Sea currently stands; the outflow of freshwater and eventual rise in sea level between the Irish and Celtic Seas inhibited the entry of flora and fauna from Europe via Britain.
The last Ice Age came to an end in Ireland about 10,000 BC. The earliest evidence of human occupation after the retreat of the ice has been dated to around 8000 BC.[2] Evidence for Mesolithic hunter-gatherers have been found throughout the country: a number of the key Early Mesolithic excavations are the settlement site at Mount Sandel in County Londonderry (Coleraine); the cremations at Hermitage, County Limerick on the bank of the River Shannon; and the camp site at Lough Boora in County Offaly. As well as these, Early Mesolithic lithic scatters have been noted around the country, from the north in County Donegal to the south in County Cork.[3] It is thought that these settlers first colonized the northeast of the country from Scotland. Although sea levels were still lower than they are today, Ireland may already have been an island by the time the first settlers arrived by boat. Most of the Mesolithic sites in Ireland are coastal settlements. The earliest inhabitants of this country were seafarers who depended for much of their livelihood upon the sea.
The hunter-gatherers of the Mesolithic era lived on a varied diet of seafood, birds, wild boar and hazelnuts. There is no evidence for deer in the Irish Mesolithic and it is likely that the first red deer were introduced here in the early stages of the Neolithic. 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. They lived in seasonal shelters, which they constructed by stretching animal skins over wooden frames. They had outdoor hearths for cooking their food. During the Mesolithic the population of Ireland was probably never more than a few thousand.
Many areas of Europe entered the Neolithic with a 'package' of cereal cultivars, pastoral animals (domesticated Oxen-Cattle, Sheep, Goats), pottery, housing and burial cultures, that arrive simultaneously, a process that begins in central Europe as LBK (Linear Pottery culture) about 6000 BC within several hundred years this culture is observed in Northern France. An alternative neolithic culture, La Hoguette culture, that arrived in France's western region appears to be a derivative of the Ibero Italian-Eastern Adriatic Impressed Cardial Ware culture (Cardium Pottery). The La Hoguette culture, like the western Cardial culture, more intensely raised sheep and goats. By 5100 BC there is evidence of dairy practices in S. 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. These animals were probably derived from the LBK cattle. Around 4300 BC cattle arrived in northern Ireland during the late mesolithic period, followed by Red Deer.
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. Sheep, goats, cattle and cereals were imported from southwest continental Europe, and the population then rose significantly. At the Céide Fields in County Mayo, an extensive Neolithic field system – arguably the oldest known in the world – has been preserved beneath a blanket of peat. Consisting of small fields separated from one another by dry-stone walls, the Céide Fields were farmed for several centuries between 3500 and 3000 BC. Wheat and barley were the principal crops cultivated. Pottery made its appearance around the same time as agriculture. Ware similar to that found in northern Britain has been excavated in Ulster (Lyle's Hill pottery) and in Limerick. Typical of this ware are wide-mouthed, round-bottomed bowls.
This follows a pattern similar to Western Europe or gradual onset of Neolithic, such as seen in La Hoguette Culture of France and Iberia's Impressed Cardial Ware Culture. Cereal culture advance markedly slows north of France, certain cereal strains such as wheat were difficult to grow in cold climates, however barley and German rye were suitable replacements. It can be speculated that the DQ2.5 aspect of the AH8.1 haplotype may have been involved in the slowing of cereal culture into Ireland, Scotland and Scandinavia since this haplotype confers susceptibility to a Triticeae protein induced disease as well as Type I Diabetes and other autoimmune diseases that may have arisen as an indirect result of Neolithization.
The most striking characteristic of the Neolithic in Ireland was the sudden appearance and dramatic proliferation of megalithic monuments. The largest of these tombs were clearly places of religious and ceremonial importance to the Neolithic population. In most of the tombs that have been excavated human remains – usually, but not always, cremated – have been found. Grave goods – pottery, arrowheads, beads, pendants, axes, etc. – have also been uncovered. These megalithic tombs, more than 1,200 of which are now known, can be divided for the most part into four broad groups:
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.
Some regions of Ireland showed patterns of pastoralism that indicated that some Neolithic peoples continued to move and indicates that pastoral activities dominated agrarian activities in many regions or that there was a division of labour between pastoral and agrarian aspects of the Neolithic.
At the height of the Neolithic the population of the island was probably in excess of 100,000, and perhaps as high as 200,000. But there appears to have been an economic collapse around 2500 BC, and the population declined for a while.
Metallurgy arrived in Ireland with new people, generally known as the Bell Beaker People, from their characteristic pottery, in the shape of an inverted bell.[4] This was quite different from the finely made, round-bottomed pottery of the Neolithic. It is found, for example, at Ross Island, and associated with copper-mining there. It is thought to be associated with the first appearance of Celtic-speaking Indo-Europeans in Europe.[5]
The Bronze Age began once copper was alloyed with tin to produce true Bronze artifacts, and this took place around 2000 BC, when some Ballybeg flat axes and associated metalwork were produced. The period preceding this, in which Lough Ravel and most Ballybeg axes were produced, and which is known as the Copper Age or Chalcolithic, commenced about 2500 BC.
Bronze was used for the manufacture of both weapons and tools. 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. Irish craftsmen became particularly noted for the horn-shaped trumpet, which was made by the cire perdue, or lost wax, process.
Copper used in the manufacture of bronze was mined in Ireland, chiefly in the southwest of the country, while the tin was imported from Cornwall in Britain. The earliest known copper mine in these islands was located at Ross Island, at the Lakes of Killarney in County Kerry; mining and metalworking took place there between 2400 and 1800 BC. 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.[6] Mines in Cork and Kerry are believed to have produced as much as 370 tonnes of copper during the Bronze Age. As only about 0.2% of this can be accounted for in excavated bronze artifacts, it is surmised that Ireland was a major exporter of copper during this period.
Ireland was also rich in native gold, and the Bronze Age saw the first extensive working of this precious metal by Irish craftsmen. More Bronze Age gold hoards have been discovered in Ireland than anywhere else in Europe. Irish gold ornaments have been found as far afield as Germany and Scandinavia. In the early stages of the Bronze Age these ornaments consisted of rather simple crescents and disks of thin gold sheet. Later the familiar Irish torque made its appearance; this was a collar consisting of a bar or ribbon of metal, twisted into a screw and then bent into a loop. Gold earrings, sun disks and lunulas (crescent “moon disks” worn around the neck) were also made in Ireland during the Bronze Age.
Smaller wedge tombs continued to be built throughout the Bronze Age, and while the previous tradition of large scale monument building was much reduced, existing earlier megalithic monuments continued in use in the form of secondary insertions of funerary and ritual artefacts. Towards the end of the Bronze Age the single-grave cist made its appearance. This consisted of a small rectangular stone chest, covered with a stone slab and buried a short distance below the surface. Numerous stone circles were also erected at this time, chiefly in Ulster and Munster.
During the Bronze Age, the climate of Ireland deteriorated and extensive deforestation took place. The population of Ireland at the end of the Bronze Age was probably in excess of 100,000, and may have been as high as 200,000. It is possible that it was not much greater than it had been at the height of the Neolithic. In Ireland the Bronze Age lasted until c. 500BC, later than the Continent and also Britain.[7]
Tribes of Ireland according to
Ptolemy's Geographia.[8]
The Irish Iron Age began around 500 BC and continued until the Christian era in Ireland, which brought some written records and therefore the end of prehistoric Ireland. The Iron Age includes the period in which the Romans ruled the neighbouring island of Britain. Roman interest in the area led to some of the earliest written evidence about Ireland. The names of its tribes were recorded by the geographer Ptolemy in the 2nd century. These names were Celtic.
The Celtic languages of Britain and Ireland can be divided into two groups: P-Celtic and Q-Celtic. When written records first appeared in the fifth century, Gaelic or Goidelic (a Q-Celtic language) was found in Ireland, while Brythonic (a P-Celtic language) was found in Britain.
The recorded Celtic tribes of Ireland included the Brigantes, a name which also belonged to the largest tribe of northern and midland Britain. Another tribe by the 2nd century AD was the Manapii, possibly the same people as the Menapii, a Belgic tribe of northern Gaul.
The late Iron Age saw sizeable changes in human activity. Thomas Charles-Edwards coined the phrase "Irish Dark Age" to refer to a period of apparent economic and cultural stagnation in late pre-historic Ireland, lasting from c. 100 B.C. to c. 300 A.D.[9] Pollen data extracted from Irish bogs indicates that "the impact of human activity upon the flora around the bogs from which the pollen came was less between c. 200 BC and c. 300 AD than either before or after.".[10] The third and fourth centuries saw a rapid recovery.[11] The reasons for the decline and recovery are uncertain, but it has been suggested that recovery may be linked to the purported "Golden Age" of Roman Britain in the third and fourth centuries. The archaeological evidence for trade with, or raids on, Roman Britain is strongest in northern Leinster, centred on modern County Dublin, followed by the coast of County Antrim, with lesser concentrations in the Rosses on the north coast of County Donegal and around Carlingford Lough.[12] Inhumation burials may also have spread from Roman Britain, and had become common in Ireland by the fourth and fifth centuries.[13]
Examples from Iron Age Ireland of La Tène style, the term for Iron Age Celtic art are very few, to a "puzzling" extent, although some of these are of very high quality, such as a number of scabbards from Ulster and the Petrie Crown. Despite this it was in Ireland that the style seemed to revive in the Early Christian period, to form the Insular art of the Book of Kells and other well-known masterpieces, perhaps under influence from Late Roman and post-Roman Romano-British styles. The 1st century BC Broighter Gold hoard, from Ulster, includes a small model boat, a spectacular torc with relief decoration influenced by classical style, and other gold jewellery probably imported from the Roman world, perhaps as far away as Alexandria.[14]
It was also during this time that some protohistoric records begin to appear.