CONSTRUCTING IDENTITY IN THE IRISH NEOLITHIC THE SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS OF PASSAGE-TOMB BUILDING (original) (raw)

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.