Graeme Warren

A late Mesolithic lithic scatter from Corralanna, Co. Westmeath, and its place in the Mesolithic landscape of the Irish Midlands

This report discusses a surface collection of late Mesolithic date from Corralanna, Co. Westmeath. The site, which was discovered after peat extraction in 1999, is characterised by a lithic assemblage comprised almost exclusively of chert, two axes, some coarse stone tools and a small range of organic finds including uncarbonised hazelnut shells. This discussion reviews the material from Corralanna, with an especial emphasis on the character of the chipped stone assemblage, placing the site in its appropriate landscape and archaeological contexts. Three radiocarbon dates from hazelnut shells were obtained. These are not demonstrably associated with the lithics, but the dates are in keeping with late Mesolithic stone tool technology. Although the assemblage is derived from a surface collection, and suffers from some of the problems associated with this, the site at Corralanna offers a significant contribution to our understanding of Mesolithic settlement in the midlands, an area rich in Mesolithic archaeology, but one that has been somewhat neglected until recently. The creation of this report was facilitated by a Heritage Council Unpublished Excavations Grant.

Quality Quartz: working stone at a bronze age kerbed Cairn at Olcote, near Calanais, Isle of Lewis

This paper discusses an assemblage of worked and smashed quartz associated with a Bronze Age kerbed cairn at Olcote. Most analytical treatments of quartz in Scottish prehistory have been structured around a pervasive dualism: quartz working is either the mundane use of a low quality raw material or the ritual use of a symbolically laden referent. The assemblage from Olcote highlights the dangers of such dichotomous analytical positions.

Stone Dead : Uncovering Early Mesolithic Mortuary Rites, Hermitage, Ireland

In Europe, cremation as a burial practice is often associated with the Bronze Age, but examples of cremated human remains are in fact known from the Palaeolithic onwards. Unlike conventional inhumation, cremation destroys most of the evidence we can use to reconstruct the biography of the buried individual. Remarkably, in Ireland, cremation is used for the earliest recorded human burial and grave assemblage (7530–7320 bc ) located on the banks of the River Shannon, at Hermitage, County Limerick. While we are unable to reconstruct in any great detail the biography of this individual, we have examined the biography of a polished stone adzehead interred with their remains. To our knowledge, this adze represents the earliest securely dated polished axe or adze in Europe. Microscopic analysis reveals that the adze was commissioned for burial, with a short duration of use indicating its employment in funerary rites. Before its deposition into the grave it was intentionally blunted, effectively ending its use-life: analogous to the death of the individual it accompanied. The microwear traces on this adze thus provide a rare insight into early Mesolithic hunter-gatherer belief systems surrounding death, whereby tools played an integral part in mortuary rites and were seen as fundamental pieces of equipment for a successful afterlife.

The Human Colonisation of Ireland in Northwest European Context

This paper reviews the human colonisation of Ireland. Archaeological evidence suggests humans have been discontinuously present in Ireland from c. 12.8 to 12.5 ka cal BP. This date seems anomalously recent in comparison to other areas of northwest Europe, including Britain, where hominins were present from c. 0.78 to 0.99 mya. Explanations for this apparently delayed colonisation include taphonomic factors and research biases as well as human activity in the past. These factors are outlined in a comparative context. The paper examines pre-Late Glacial Maximum evidence and the (re) colonisation of the British-Irish Isles following the retreat of the Ice, synthesising archaeological and genetic data as appropriate. An important emphasis is placed on the need to consider the process of colonisation, how hunter-gatherers encounter new worlds and to examine why things happen at the times that they do.

Island Quarries, Island Axeheads, and the Neolithic of Ireland and Britain

A notable feature of the Neolithic Period (4,000-2,500 cal B.C.) of northwest Europe is the exploitation of lithic sources on islands for the production of stone axeheads and other artifacts. This article focuses on three such islands: 1) Rathlin in the North Channel off the northeast coast of Ireland, 2) the island group of Shetland between the North Atlantic and the North Sea, and 3) the island of Lambay off the east coast of Ireland. This work provides support for the importance of insular axehead sources during the Neolithic. The quarries on these islands and the pattern of the distribution of their products provide evidence of quite different scales and organization of quarrying activity and extent of distribution of products from the quarries and hence types of social networks.

How can we understand researchers' perceptions of key research developments? A case study focusing on the adoption of agriculture in Ireland

Abstract Understanding how researchers perceive key research developments in their fields is not straightforward. This paper reports on a project focusing on perceptions of key developments in the adoption of agriculture (Mesolithic-Neolithic transition) in Ireland. The project involved over sixty interviews with active researchers, generating qualitative data that provide an overview of these perceptions. Despite much diversity, several areas emerge as having been particularly important, including methodologies and wider developments in archaeological practice. Variation between Ireland and other areas of north-west Europe is suggested by some aspects of the data.