The document provides information on Mesolithic and Neolithic settlers in Ireland. It discusses: - Mesolithic settlers arrived in Ireland around 7000 BC and settled along river banks and coasts, hunting and gathering food. Evidence from Mount Sandel shows they lived in huts and exploited salmon and other fish. - In the Neolithic period, around 3500 BC, farming was introduced through clearing forests and domesticating animals. This allowed more permanent settlements and the development of monumental architecture like megalithic tombs, as well as pottery and polished stone tools like porcellanite axes.

1. Mesolithic Period in Ireland

2. First Settlers
• 7000BC referred to as the Mesolithic period or
Middle Stone Age.
• Parts of Munster were not covered by ice so
this is the most likely place to find evidence of
earlier habitation from the Old Stone Age
(Palaeolithic)

3. Mesolithic Settlers
• The earliest Mesolithic hunters entered an island that
was heavily forested.
• The climate was slowly becoming warmer
• Rivers were full of fish and
• Woodlands abundant with game
• Salmon, eels, deer, pig and game birds were available.
• The range of species was smaller than in Britain.
• Arrived by boat.
• Earliest settlements probably have been covered by the
sea.

4. Mesolithic Settlers
• The Mesolithic people chose river banks, lakeside
and coastal locations for their settlements. Why?
• They hunted wild pig and game birds (woodpigeon,
woodcock) and they gathered hazelnuts.
• They caught salmon in the spring and summer.
• There is some evidence in Newferry, Co Antrim of
small scale forest clearance
• What tools would they have used during this period
of time?

5. Mesolithic Settlers - Stone
• Stone is the most enduring of materials which
was used from earliest times. It was used to
make domestic utensils, tools, weapons etc.
• Important to note:
Archaeologists speak of Stone Age, Bronze Age,
Iron Age however, stone remained in use for many
practical purposes long after new technologies
appeared.
• Flint from chalk deposits and chert from
limestone are found throughout all stone age
sites.

6. Chert - Chert breaks in such a way that it often produces very sharp edges. Early
people took advantage of how chert breaks and used it to make cutting tools and weapons.

8. Flint and Stone tools
• Mesolithic people developed remarkable skills
in working with this raw material.
• Flint breaks like glass and while very hard, can
be chipped quite easily, giving a fractured
razor sharp edge.
• Stone axes, scapers etc were all used at this
time.

9. Mesolithic Tools

10. Mesolithic Weapons

11. Mesolithic Camp similar to Mt Sandel
(© Copyright Historic Scotland)

12. Mount Sandel, Co Derry
• No monuments exist from this period
• Mesolithic tools have been ploughed up for nearly 100
years at a site called Mount Sandel.
• Dating 7000BC and 6650BC.
• Post holes were discovered
• Evidence of re-occupations over time
• Animal bones
– Dog
– hare and
– wild pig.
• Bones from salmon, trout and eel also found.

13. Re-construction of Mesolithic
settlement

14. Mount Sandel
• Radiocarbon dates at Mount Sandel is among the earliest
human occupations in Ireland
• First occupied around 7000 BC.
• Stone tools recovered from the site include a huge variety of
microliths (tiny stone flakes and tools)
• Tools found at the site include
– flint axes
– needles
– triangle-shaped microliths
– pick-like tools
– hide scrapers
• One hearth included bone fragments and hazelnuts

15. Mt Sandel Diet
• The faunal remains indicated a wide range of
species were exploited by the inhabitants.
1. Fish bones 81% of finds
2. Mammal bones 15%
3. Bird bones (4%)
• The fish included;
1. salmon (48%)
2. trout (32%)
3. eel (7%)
4. bass and flounder (13%) -River Bann

16. Mt Sandel - Diet
How did they catch the fish?
1. Harpoons
2. nets or
3. baited lines
4. fish traps
• Mesolithic fish traps - post and wattle panels and wicker
baskets
• Also found in Clowanstown, Co. Meath and Spencer Dock,
Dublin.
• Evidence for wooden racks, over which the fish would have
been dried or smoked were also identified at Mount Sandel

18. http://www.100objects.ie/portfolio-items/mesolithic-
fish-trap-c-5000bc/

19. Reconstruction of Fish Trap

20. Summary Mt Sandal
• Mount Sandel - unique insight into the lives of Ireland’s very first
inhabitants.
• appears to have been occupied for most of the year.
• residents were adept at exploiting the natural world,
• targeting migrating salmon during the summer months,
• harvesting hazelnuts in the autumn and
• hunting wild pigs during the cold days of winter.
• They slept in sturdy huts with internal hearths
• To-date these simple structures represent the only definite
Mesolithic houses discovered in Ireland.
• Experimental archaeology students of University College Dublin
have recreated these Mesolithic structures.

21. Neolithic Irleand
• Archaeologists began to notice important
changes when excavating sites linked to 3500
BC
• Less pollen from trees and more from grass.
What does this tell us?
• They found pollen from wheat and barley.
• They found bones from cattle, sheep and
goats.

22. Neolithic Ireland
• Dependence on the environment for what one
could hunt, trap or collect for survival was
very limiting.
• Harvesting of wild grasses began
• Animals such as goats and pigs were
controlled
• Beginning of agricultural communities.

23. Neolithic Ireland
What would be the benefits of
controlling food supply?

24. Benefits of Controlling Food Supply
• Groups could produce surpluses which would
feed them in the leaner months of the year.
• They could settle more permanently and not
be preoccupied by the overwhelming need to
seek food
• They could develop crafts.
How do we know that people were farming at
this time? What evidence shows the changes in
society?

25. Neolithic Ireland
• It was a time of great change:
– the appearance of great monumental architecture
– social organisation etc.
• The Neolithic period also saw an increase in the
tool-kit, and domestic equipment.
• archaeological evidence includes:
– houses,
– stone tombs (megalithic tombs),
– More varied stone tools,
– pottery fragments,
– plant pollen etc.

26. Changes
• With the introduction of farming, extensive
forest clearance took place
• Parts of the land had been divided into fields
and settled communities occupied the whole
island.
• It is also evident that Ireland had been opened
up to regular contact with people overseas.

27. Animals and Cereals
• Ireland did not have many native cereal crops,
and wild pigs were the only farm animals
native to the country
• It appears that settlers brought with them
cows, goats and sheep.
• It is thought that these animals were
transported across the Irish Sea on wooden
rafts towed by skin-boats

29. Land Clearing
• The newly-cleared upland was used for
agriculture (cleared with axes or burning)
• Erosion and overgrazing was soon to cause it
to stagnate, acidify and eventually evolve into
peat bogs.
• Thus most of Ireland's upland peat bogs
(blanket bogs) are actually artificial features
created by Neolithic farmers.

30. Pottery and stone axes
• New crafts and skills including pottery-making.
• The pots usually have rounded bases
• The Neolithic farmers also manufactured
polished stone axes in vast numbers, the most
splendid being the hoard of nineteen
discovered close to the Malone Road in
Belfast.
• These axes are made from a stone called
porcellanite

32. Porcellanite
• Porcellanite is a hard, dense rock somewhat
similar in appearance to unglazed porcelain .
• This is a rock that is tougher than the flint used
previously. It can be used more effectively for
making axes, digging tools etc.
• They found that they could chop down much
larger trees than they could with flint tools, and
this allowed them to more effectively clear
Ireland's upland forests.

33. Porcellanite

34. Porcellanite
• Porcellanite was mined almost exclusively in county
Antrim, in northern Ireland, and two sites have been
excavated by archaeologists: Rathlin Island and
Cushendall.
• Axes from these 'factories' have been found mainly
in Ulster, but also across Ireland and as far away as
southern England.
• This suggests that, far from being isolated, the
Neolithic Irish farmers were trading with Neolithic
Britons.

35. Porcellanite Axe Head
Rathlin Island

36. Neolithic Communities
• Neolithic farmers may have lived in larger
communities than previous Irish communities
did,
• Evidence of a number of families living in a
cluster of houses with perhaps a larger multi-
purpose building in the centre.
• Evidence from the "Céide Fields" in county
Mayo suggests that these communities may
have farmed a considerable amount of land

37. Evidence found
• Pollen records suggests that extensive forest
clearance took place during this period to
open up new farmland, with large field
systems being laid out (the Céide fields in
County Mayo).

38. Ceide Fields
• The Céide Fields are the oldest known field systems in
the world, over five and a half millennia old.
• Unique Neolithic landscape of world importance, which
has changed our perception of our Stone Age ancestors.
• The remains of stone field walls, houses and megalithic
tombs are preserved beneath a blanket of peat over
several square miles.
• At the time, the climate would have allowed them to
grow crops there, although today it is a bog. (Note:
Céide is pronounced Kay-je.)

40. Ceide Fields Visitor Centre

41. Ceide Fields

42. Neolithic Communities
• Less movement meant more permanent dwellings
• Larger houses built usually rectangular with tree trunks sunk
vertically into the ground with woven branches covered with
mud.
• The gables at each end were supported by a large beam
leaning against the ridge of the roof. The roof itself was made
from timber beams with reed thatch covering it.
• A small hole in the roof allowed smoke to escape.
• An excellent reconstruction of a Neolithic house can be seen
at the Ulster History Park near Omagh, county Tyrone.

43. Neolithic House – Ulster History Park

44. Neolithic Monuments
• One of the most distinctive aspects of the Neolithic period was the
introduction of new and monumental forms of burial architecture in
the form of megalithic tombs.
• The four most notable being;
– court tombs,
– portal tombs,
– passage tombs and
– wedge tombs.
– Court tombs, which have a largely northern distribution appear
to be the oldest type and are similar to monuments found in
Scotland. They are generally wedged-shaped in plan, with
associated courtyards that were probably used for ceremonial
activity and had internal burial chambers.

46. Creevykeel Court tomb

47. Portal Tombs
• Portal tombs are simpler tombs.
• Characterised by a number of upright stones, which support a
gigantic capstone.
• This gives them a somewhat table-like appearance and has led to
many colloquial names such as
– Druids altars,
– Giants beds or
– Diarmaid and Grainnes’ bed.
• The internal chamber in these monuments was used for burials and
they may have originally been covered in earthen/stone mounds,
Poulnabrone, in County Clare is probably the most recognisable
Portal tomb and excavation here revealed a number of skeletons,
one of which had a violent death as a flint arrowhead was found
embedded in its leg. (Irish Archaeology)

48. Poulnabrone Dolmen

49. Passage Tombs
• The third class of megalithic tomb, the passage
tomb, is by far the most impressive.
• It occurs mainly in a band extending across the
centre of the country from Sligo to Meath,
although outliers do exist in locations such as
Cape Clear in Co. Cork.
• The tombs generally consist of a large circular
mound containing a central chamber or
chambers, which are accessed by a long
passageway that is often orientated on
important phases of the suns yearly cycle.

50. Passage Tombs
• The tombs generally occur in cemetery clusters, with some of
the most famous being Carrowkeel in County Sligo, and
Loughcrew, Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth, all in County
Meath.
• Some of tombs can be extremely large with Newgrange
probably being the most impressive.
• They often contain rock art, utilising motifs such as spirals,
chevrons and dots to create impressive images.
• Burial took place in the central chambers with cremation
being favoured over inhumation.
• (Photos next slides from Lough Crew – Darragh Kiernan)

54. Wedge tombs
• The final burial monument of the Neolithic,
the wedge tomb, was used at the very end of
the period - Early Bronze Age.
• Mostly southwest of the country
• Typically consist of a small wedged shaped
tomb constructed out of uprights stones
supporting capstones.
• Burial remains are located with the chamber.