• The Carrowkeel Passage Tomb Complex, Co. Sligo: people and a pre-monumental landscape, Association of Young Irish Archaeologists Conference Papers 2003, UCC, Cork , 2003 (original) (raw)
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Moving on in Neolithic studies: Understanding mobile lives, 2016
The Carrowkeel-Keshcorran passage tomb complex is one of the four principle passage tomb complexes in Ireland; the others being Cúil Irra, also in County Sligo (Knocknarea, Carrowmore Cairns Hill); Loughcrew and the Boyne Valley, both of which are found in County Meath. Elements of architectural design and landscape setting at these passage tomb clusters contain concepts of crossing physical and symbolic thresholds. The positioning of passage tombs in landscape settings such as mountain tops, prominent ridges or locations overlooking important river systems appear to be deliberate acts by the Neolithic architects. Landscape features common to many passage tombs clusters include relationships with water that may suggest movement along, or movement across. Other features that many passage tombs possess is that they contain architectural devices that control movement into and through the monument along with a system of physical and symbolic concentric spaces, both internally and externally, and a series of thresholds. This paper examines mobility across liminal zones in the Irish passage tomb tradition in general and at the Carrowkeel-Keshcorran passage tomb complex in particular.
Abstract The Chalcolithic wedge tombs of Ireland represent a dramatic re-emergence of megalithism over a millennium after most Neolithic and Irish megaliths were built and many centuries after most had gone out of use. This resurgence of building monuments associated with the dead may well have been associated with a period of social instability caused by the expansion of exchange networks and associated with the introduction of metallurgy. Regional, group, and individual identities all seem to have undergone change at this time, probably in a dynamic demographic context. Variations in the distribution and scale of wedge tombs in Co. Clare, on the west coast of Ireland, provide an interesting study that may reveal a pattern of clan affiliations, status competition, and enduring links to an important and ancient locale. Keywords: Chalcolithic, megalith, monument, status competition, identity, Ireland, landscape, wedge tomb
The Chalcolithic wedge tombs of Ireland represent a dramatic re-emergence of megalithism over a millenium after most Neolithic megaliths were build and many centuries after most had gone out of use. This resurgence of building monuments associated with the dead may well have been associated with a period of social instability caused by the expansion of exchange networks and associated with the introduction of metallurgy. Regional, group, and individual identities all seem to have undergone change at this time, probably in a dynamic demographic context. Variations in the distribution and scale of wedge tombs in Co. Clare, on the west coast of Ireland, provide an interesting study that may reveal a pattern of clan affiliations, status competition, and enduring links to an important and ancient locale.
Sacred places: Kilskeagh, Co. Galway and Neolithic earthen enclosures
Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, Section C, 2013
Excavation of complete Neolithic enclosures in Ireland is rare, with few published to date. This article will detail an excavation carried out during the summer of 2010 in Kilskeagh, Co. Galway, where a small penannular enclosure with a raised interior or mound was revealed. Radiocarbon dating and artefactual analysis indicates it is Neolithic in date and joins a small number of known earthen Neolithic enclosures in Ireland. While the enclosure displays similarities with several other smaller enclosures of the Neolithic period, as with the majority of smaller Neolithic enclosures it has no known exact parallel. It is the contention of this article that the enclosure uncovered in Kilskeagh, Co. Galway represents a unique, non-funerary monument of ritual or ceremonial significance, probably dating to the middle Neolithic period. It was revealed that there had been deliberate re-use of the enclosure ditch, with re-excavation in the form of a widening and deepening of the cut, for activity resulting in the production of burnt mound-like material. Further, it was uncovered that in the later part of the early medieval period, a stone-lined cereal-drying kiln was constructed in the Neolithic enclosure's internal mound. (Figure 1). The Neolithic period in Ireland The Neolithic period in Ireland has received considerable attention in the past decade or two. Our understanding of the approximate 1,500 years, between c. 4000Á2500 BC, from the advent of farming until the introduction of metal and metal working has grown considerably. This is evident from the many new insights in Gabriel Cooney's (2000) Landscapes of Neolithic Ireland and chapter 12 on 'Ireland' in Whittle et al., Gathering time: dating the early Neolithic enclosures of southern Britain and Ireland (2011). Well-known sites such as the Céide fields (Caulfield 1978); the Knockadoon peninsula, Co. Limerick; the burial monuments of the Boyne Valley; Carrowmore (Burenhult 2001) and Carrowkeel (Bergh 1995), Co. Sligo and Loughcrew, Co. Meath (McMann 2005) have been the cornerstones of our understanding of the Neolithic period. More recently, considerable work has been carried out on Neolithic structures or houses (see Cooney 1999;
CONSTRUCTING IDENTITY IN THE IRISH NEOLITHIC THE SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS OF PASSAGE-TOMB BUILDING
1 B072063 This dissertation will consider the social implications of passage-tomb building in County Meath, Ireland; in particular what passage-tomb architecture and design reveal about social identity and social networks. A comparative study will consider various features of Irish passage-tombs, particularly the architecture and art, as well as locations and orientations. Patterns in the data will be identified between sites in order to achieve better understanding. Increasing monumentality over time links to extended kinship-based alliances, suggested by shared motifs, architectural and artistic standardization, and orientations linking communities. The effort required in increased monumentality indicates larger social networks, and changes in funerary practice with an emphasis on outside activities that ensured public viewing of ritual activities linked to ancestors. Ritualized public activities endorsed social values that encouraged social cohesion, and limited violence, enabling shared benefits of rich farming areas. Over time, County Meath's social network expanded to include communities across the Irish Sea, indicated by 'foreign' material culture from Scotland, Wales and beyond. The growing importance of the Boyne Valley is seen in its density of ritual sites, and this may explain Fourknocks' desire to integrate into that network through construction and decoration of a possibly symbolic site with a view of Dowth.
Archaeology Ireland, 2012
Passage tomb art in Ireland is primarily an east or Ireland phenomenon with by far the greatest concentration of decorated monuments in Co. Meath in the Loughcrew and Brú na Bóinne complexes. But a recent discovery of carved motifs on two construction stones at cairn B in the Carrowkeel-Keashcorran passage tomb complex, together with fresh recordings of other megalithic art in the northwest, puts the apparent monopoly of the eastern distribution into dispute. The discovery raises a number of interesting questions: could there be another centre of passage tomb art in county Sligo; what is the relationship between the art in the northwest and that of the eastern passage tombs; could passage tomb art be a phenomenon that started in the west of Ireland where the oldest use of passage tombs has recently been recorded? In this article we discuss the art from cairn B and examine issues that arise in consideration of its discovery, for the monument itself and for the Irish passage tomb tradition.
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