The Journal of Irish Archaeology Volume XIX 2010: Review

 

One of the highlights of the archaeological year is the publication of the Journal of Irish Archaeology by the Institute of Archaeologists of Ireland. This latest volume XIX for 2010 is edited by Prof. James Mallory of Queen’s University Belfast and includes six papers on a variety of topics ranging from prehistory to the post-medieval period. There are papers on the rock art of Loughcrew and George Petrie’s work on megalithic tombs. There are surveys of Inis Airc Island, medieval church altars and the limestone quarries of the Hook Peninsula, and there is also a report on the excavation of early medieval and prehistoric features at Ballyburn Upper, Co. Kildare.

Open-air rock art at Loughcrew, Co. Meath

Elizabeth Shee Twohig, Corinne Roughley, Colin Shell, Ciaran O’Reilly, Peter Clarke and Gillian Swanton

Elizabeth SheeTwohig et al. report on 10 new examples of rock art found in the vicinity of the Loughcrew, Co. Meath passage Tomb cemetery since 2003. They discuss the geology and location of the art and present a catalogue and drawings and review the earlier discoveries. They discuss the repertoire and organisation of the art. In the conclusion they suggest that the open-air rock art and passage tomb art could be contemporary.

Druids’ altars, Carrowmore and the birth of Irish archaeology

David McGuinness

David McGuinness in a paper on the history of archaeology explores how George Petrie’s work on the Carrowmore megalithic cemetery in 1837 and the opening of the Knockmary Tumulus in the Phoenix Park Dublin in front of the members of the Royal Irish Academy lead to the acceptance of megalithic sites as tombs rather than temples.

Reconsidering early medieval seascapes: new insights from Inis Airc, Co. Galway. Ireland

Ian Kujit, Ryan Lash, Michael, Gibbons, Jim Higgins, Nathan Goodale and John O’Neill

Field survey of Inis Airc, Co. Galway suggests that the island with its stone church, graveyards, cashel and possible oratory, holy wells and open air altar may have been an early medieval ecclesiastical settlement.

Settlement and economy of an early medieval site in the vicinity of two newly discovered enclosures near the Carlow/Kildare border.

Nial O’Neill

This is a report of the excavation of an unenclosed early medieval subsistence and manufacturing site as well as the testing of the two hilltop enclosures, one with a large burnt deposit at its centre, and a Bronze Age hut site at Ballyburn Upper, Co. Kildare. The discussion is focussed on the unenclosed subsistence and manufacturing site as this is an indication that not all activity took place within the enclosed farmsteads known as ringforts and cashels.

Altars in Ireland. 1050-1200: a survey

Griffin Murray

This assessment of eight stone alters from the medieval period finds that they were all of a uniform size and shape in order to hold a reasonable number of religious artefacts and that there decoration was influenced by altars of wood and metal.

Between the sea and the land: coastal limestone quarries on the Hook Peninsula, Co. Wexford

Niall Colfer

Niall Colfer discusses the post-medieval industrial limestone quarries of the Loftus Estate of the Hook Peninsula, Co. Wexford. He notes that the stone was used to construct many of the landscape features we see on the peninsula today.

Cite this post as:

Mount, C. The Journal of Irish Archaeology Volume XIX 2010: Review. The Charles Mount Blog, August 25, 2011. http://charles-mount.ie/wp/?p=472

The two burial traditions of the beaker period in Ireland 1.1

A beaker from Largantea, Co. Derry, after Herring 1938.

 

New discoveries are transforming how we view the beaker period.

Introduction

Beaker is a style of prehistoric pottery found throughout Europe in the later part of the third millennium BC from Scandinavia to North Africa and from the Danube to Ireland. Early beakers are tall pots with characteristic curving bell-shaped profiles and narrow flat bases that are often decorated with horizontal bands of decoration, although later beakers had a wider variety of forms. Radiocarbon dating indicates that beaker came into use in Ireland during the Cooper Age in the years following 2450 cal BC. Beaker ceased being deposited in burials by about 2170 cal BC but remained in general use when the Bronze Age commenced about 2000 BC and only went out of use entirely about 1900 Cal BC. It is the roughly three hundred years when beaker appeared in burials between 2450-2170 cal BC that I will refer to as the beaker period.

In Ireland beaker is found at settlement and ceremonial sites as well as in burials and early copper mines. Until recently Irish beaker burials were only known from megalithic tombs mainly in the north of the island. Discoveries made since the 1990s have transformed the situation. We are now able to discuss two burial traditions, one involving both old and newly built megalithic tombs in the north and a single burial tradition in the south. Beaker period burials are now known from old megalithic tombs with beaker associated burials. They are also known from newly built megalithic Wedge Tombs with beaker associated burials as well as from Wedge Tombs without beaker associated burials. To this we can now add burials with beaker in pits and without beaker in stone cists.

Old Megalithic tombs

In the Beaker period people in the north of the island placed burials accompanied by beaker pottery into megalithic tombs which were already very old monuments. The main old tomb used for beaker burial was the Court Tomb. There are about 390 Court Tombs known that consist of longitudinal chambers under long cairns with forecourt entrance features. At Ballybriest, Co. Derry, for example, an oval cavity resembling a polygonal cist was created in the Court Tomb cairn and the cremated remains of an adult male associated with a beaker were then placed into the cavity.

Newly built megalithic tombs

Wedge Tombs are the most common megalithic tomb type known in Ireland, with more than 500 known examples found mainly in the north, west and south-west. Most Wedge Tombs have wedge-shaped chambers with forecourts and round to oval cairns. Wedge Tombs came into use during the period 2540-2300 cal BC at about the start of the Beaker period and broadly contemporary beaker burials have been identified in a number of Wedge tombs mainly in the north. Both cremated and unburnt human remains were deposited in the Wedge tombs although cremation was more common. For example, at Largantea Co. Derry, cremated remains were deposited with what appeared to be whole beakers.

Wedge Tombs with burials not associated with beaker

Not all the Wedge Tombs investigated contained Beaker pottery. A number of examples have been investigated in the south of the country, like Labbacallee and Island, Co. Cork, that contained human remains but no beaker pottery. This indicates that not all beaker period burials were accompanied by beaker and we should be on the lookout for contemporary pit burials without pottery.

Pit burials with beaker

There are a number of pit burials containing Beaker now known from the south and east of the country. These burials are characterised as having small token quantities of cremated bone associated with sherds from one or more beakers sometimes associated with large stone artefacts like axes and mace heads, as well as flint and cereal grains. At Lismullin, Co. Meath a pit contained a cremated individual with burnt stone, a fragment of a mace head and sherds of two beakers as well as some Neolithic sherds and a flint flake. At Corbally, Co. Kildare a pit with a scorched base contained cremated human bone, animal bone, burnt flint and a chert barbed and tanged arrowhead with sherds of two beakers. Another pit in the neighbouring townland of Brownstown Co. Kildare contained cremated bone and barley and wheat associated with sherds of beaker.

Cist graves without Beaker

At Brackagh, Co. Derry a a small sub-rectangular cairn that was enclosed by 11 posts covered a pair of stone cists, one rectangular and the other octagonal, within a figure of eight stone setting. The octagonal cist contained the cremated remains of two adults that were dated to 2620-2485 cal. BC. The rectangular cist also contained the cremated remains of two individuals dated to 2485-2342 cal BC. There were no artefact associations with the burials. These cist burials highlight the possibility that other cists containing cremations but no associated artefacts may also date to the Beaker period.

Discussion

The new evidence is transforming our view of burial in the beaker period in Ireland. Two contrasting burial types are now visible, one traditional and centred on megalithic tombs mainly in the north of the island. The other focussed on simpler single graves mainly in the south. The megalithic tombs continued a long tradition of collective burial of both burnt and unburnt remains and the deposition of whole pottery vessels that may have contained organic materials. In contrast pit burials were single graves with only small amounts of cremated bone accompanied by broken artefacts. What is emerging are two different views of burial, one looking to past traditions, the other making a new statement, but both using the international style of beaker pottery.

About the author

Dr. Charles Mount has been involved in research on the Irish Bronze Age for more than twenty years and has published extensively on the burials, monuments and artefacts of the period. This blog post is based on research he is preparing for a book on the period. You can read more of Dr. Mount’s publications here .

Further reading

Waddell 1998 is an excellent introduction to the prehistory of Ireland which summarises many of the themes and sites discussed here. Herity 1987 has summarised all the finds from the Irish Court Tombs. Schulting et al discuss the chronology of the Irish Wedge Tombs. O’Brien 2004 has published his excavations of the early copper mine at Ross Island, Co. Kerry and set the mines in the context of the Copper Age. For more on the pottery of the Bronze Age read Brindley 2007. Herring 1938, Purcell 2002, O’Connell 2009 and O’Regan 2010 include primary information on the Larngantia, Corbally, Brownstown, Lismullin and Brackagh burials.

Brindley, A. 2007. The dating of Food Vessels & urns in Ireland. Bronze Age Studies 7, Galway

Herity, M. 1987. The finds from Irish Court Tombs. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 87c, 5-281.

Herring, . J. 1938. The cairn excavation at Well Glass Spring, Largantea, Co. Londonderry. Ulster Journal of Archaeology 1, 164-88.

O’Brien, W. 2004. Ross Island. Mining, Metal and Society in Early Ireland. Bronze Age Studies 6, Galway.

O’Connell, A. 2009. Excavations at Lismullin, Co. Meath 1. National Roads Authority Report.

O’Regan, C. 2010. A monumental discovery in south Derry Archaeology Ireland 24, No. 3, 22-24

Purcell, A. 2002.  Excavation of Three Neolithic Houses at Corbally, Kilcullen, Co. Kildare. Journal of Irish Archaeology 11, 31-75.

Schulting, R., Sheridan, A., Clarke, S. And Ramsey, B. 2008. Largantea and the dating of Irish Wedge Tombs. Journal of Irish Archaeology 17, 1-17.

Waddell, J. 1990. The Prehistoric Archaeology of Ireland. Galway.

Cite this post as:

Mount, C. The two burial traditions of the beaker period in Ireland. The Charles Mount Blog, August 11, 2011. http://charles-mount.ie/wp/?p=349

Version 1.1: revised 4/10/2011

Monuments and created and appropriated continuity

Aerial view of the Hill of Tara, Co. Meath, Ireland.

The creation of continuity

Throughout history people have built, copied and added to monuments according to the needs of the day. These alterations, emulations and additions draw on the histories and mythologies of the old monuments and the places and landscapes in which they are situated and recreate them to suit a new narrative. Richard Bradley (1987) drew on the ideas of Maurice Bloch (1977) concerning the use of the past in the present and Eric Hobsbawn’s (1983) concept of the invention of tradition (where practices of a ritual or symbolic nature seek to instil values and norms which imply continuity with a suitable past) to suggest that the use of the ritual past is one way in which groups establish their own political positions and put these positions beyond challenge. The past becomes a resource in the hands of the living who may legitimate their position through the promulgation of origin myths. Bradley suggested that the past was also re-used through the strategic use of old monuments that were incorporated into a new landscape. He called the appropriation of meaning held in the mythology of old monuments the creation of continuity.

The appropriation of continuity

These processes can be seen at work in the development of monument complexes where both the copying and the physical conjoining of monuments are evident. In a forthcoming paper on the monument complex at Rathdooney beg, Co. Sligo I propose the concept of appropriated continuity as a means of interpreting the development of monument complexes (Mount in press a). Appropriated continuity is a  strategy intended to forge a physical link to a dominant social group through the creation of conjoined monuments. In oral tradition appropriated continuity is paralleled by the development of false genealogies intended to justify the position of one group by claiming lineal descent from another (Byrne 2001, 3).

Created and appropriated continuities in the landscape

There are a number of landscape locations in Ireland with prominent monument complexes that were re-used and recreated at various periods. The re-use of old sites and ancient monuments represents more than simply a continuity of practice, but a conscious decision to use sites that would have had an established significance, mythological identify and landscape prominence. The occurrence of this re-use at a number of sites indicates preoccupation with forging links with the past, to draw on or recreate the past in order to support emerging social or political developments by creating a new continuity.

The greatest concentration of conjoined barrows (prehistoric burial monuments) in Ireland is found on the Hill of Tara in Co. Meath, where they occur in five of the six main barrow groups. The barrows groups at Tara represent the continuation and elaboration of Early Bronze Age lineage groups through the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age (Mount in press). As the Tara barrow groups developed, lineages could be spatially and historically linked and be seen to descend from remembered ancestors and the grouping of barrows reflect both the links and tensions between ancestral lineages reflected within the groupings Cooney (2009, 379). The practice of physically conjoining a new barrow to an old one and encompassing old barrows into new monuments was probably intended to link lineages together or emphasise an existing, a new or a falsely created lineal descent.

The conjoining of barrows and other earthworks during prehistory indicates that at times it was important to physically link a new monument to an existing one. This expressed a physical relationship between the new and old monument so that the new and old became one. In the case of barrows this symbolically linked those commemorated by the later monument to the earlier one. The emergence of conjoined monuments and the preoccupation with old sites and monuments are all related to the creation of continuity. Emulating, re-using and recreating old monuments is characteristic of groups creating history to suit contemporary needs. Building a barrow to resemble and emulate an ancient monument with associated mythology signals that a group is similar to or even descended from the mythological figures of old. Building a new monument that physically joins or encompasses another goes beyond emulation and represents the attempt to annex, appropriate or even eclipse the symbolic, familial or social associations of the earlier monument.

Conclusion

The concept of created continuity provides us with insights into the development of prominent monuments complexes in the landscape. The concept of appropriated continuity allows us to explore the nature of the relationships being created. The former strategy looks to the formation of a new political or social order using the past as a frame of reference. The latter strategy is about establishing direct relationships within a political or social system and is involved with the creation of lineage and descent relationships. In lineal descent groups conjoining monuments is a way of promoting a more distant relationship or supporting an entirely fictitious one and is an attempt to appropriate continuity with the earlier monument.

Further reading

Bloch, M. 1977. The past and present in the present. Man 12, 278-92.

Bradley, R. 1987. Time regained: the creation of continuity. Journal of the British Archaeological Association 140, 1-17.

Byrne, F.J. 2001. Irish Kings and High Kings. 2nd ed. Dublin.

Cooney, G. 1994. Sacred and secular Neolithic landscapes in Ireland, in D.L. Carmichael, J. Hubert, B. Reeves and A. Schanche (eds) Sacred Sites, Sacred Places. One World Archaeology 23. London. 

Cooney, G. 2009. Tracing lines across landscapes: corporality and history in later prehistoric Ireland, in G. Cooney, K. Becker, J. Coles, M. Ryan and S. Sievers (Eds.) Relics of Old Decency: archaeological studies in later prehistory. Dublin, 375-88.

Hobsbawm, M. 1983. Introduction: inventing traditions, in M. Hobsbawm and Ranger, T.O. The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge, 1-14.

Mount, C. (In press a). Created and appropriated continuity at Rathdooney Beg, Co. Sligo. In C. Corlett and M. Potterton  (eds) Life and Death in the Iron Age in Ireland.

Mount, C. (In press b). The context of the Early Bronze Age cemetery in the Mound of the Hostages, Tara, Co. Meath. In M. O’Sullivan at al. (eds) Tara from the Past to the Future.

Newman, C. 1997. Tara an Archaeological Survey. Discovery Programme Monographs 2. Dublin.

Cite this post as:

 Mount, C. Monuments and created and appropriated continuity. The Charles Mount Blog, June 7, 2011. http://charles-mount.ie/wp/?p=127