A short Prehistory of Ireland:

                                                            from "The Book of Invasions"

No one knows who the first men were to set foot in Ireland, or when they did so. Certainly the first pioneers would have been few in number and so would not have left much for archaeologists to dig up. Traces of past societies must be substantial to merit credibility, and they are usually in the form of large encampments or small towns. The smaller the settlement, the less likely it is to come to our attention. So, even if Ireland had been visited for millennia by small groups of wandering hunters, their passing might never be detected.

It is generally accepted that England at least, was connected to Europe by a land bridge. Some writers show the south of England and a narrow strip along the southern coast of what is now Ireland, connected to France during the late Pleistocene Glaciation, about 65,000 years ago. The rest of the British Isles to the north were covered by a kilometers thick ice sheet, as is Greenland today. There is some disagreement as to when Ireland became separate from England, but by 8,500 BC it was clearly separate. (Note that this date is seventeen centuries before the first signs of substantial human migration into Ireland.) The ice cap had retreated to the north of Scotland, leaving England firmly connected to Europe by land which today forms the bottom of the North Sea. In fact, researchers working under water have found evidence of ancient settlements on the North Sea floor.

The retreat of the ice cap had two results beyond that of heralding the end of the Ice Age. First, it raised the level of the oceans all around the world, causing land bridges to disappear in many places, and the North Sea to appear where once there had been land. Coastal settlements were flooded and there was a mass exodus of people to higher ground, which gave rise to the folk histories involving a great flood in nearly every ancient society. Secondly, as the ice cap melted away, an enormous weight was removed from the British Isles, and they rose in the north, so that some mesolithic coastal settlements in Scotland were left miles inland from the sea (the opposite of what happened elsewhere).

Just a word about the words used in Archaeology: the terms tend to come from Greek stems. "Palaeo-" meaning ancient, and "lith" meaning stone, give us "palaeolithic", for "Old Stone Age". Mesolithic and neolithic mean Middle and New Stone Age, respectively. The Ice Age was caused by nature, but the Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages were manmade, and denote changes in man's use of materials, and so you will hear of people living in the Stone and Ice Ages at the same time. Words such as "Danubian" denote a neolithic people who lived along the Danube River. Artefacts of their society have been found all over Europe, which suggests - but does not prove - that they migrated out of their Danube homeland. We have used "Danubian" and similar terms somewhat loosely, because such labels can be a great aid to learning.

The Neanderthals (Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis):

As the ice cap receded across Europe, the high pressure and motion of the ice left behind a layer of powdered stone. This formed an extremely fertile soil, which soon became a vast and fertile grassland. There was an explosion of animal life into this vacuum, which was soon covered with thundering herds of Mammoths, Giant Deer, Bison, and other ungulates. Cave dwelling Neanderthal Man, the heavy set "cave men" of cartoons and comics, was quickly replaced by modern man, and seems to vanish from the record about 34,000 B.C.

We have had such sport lampooning Neanderthal Man, that we tend to forget he was the first known Homo Sapiens. We acknowledge that he is more powerfully built than modern man, but it has recently been shown that he may have been more fleet of foot. For example, he is far better equiped to run sideways than are we - something which may have been very useful during a hunt. We now suspect, from examining tombs, that he was a spiritual being, and more embarrassingly, he had a larger brain than we do.

We may owe more to Neanderthal man and to his Mousterian culture than previously realized. When a Mousterian flute was discovered in the Divje Babe I cave in northwestern Slovenia, a musicologist (Bob Fink) in Saskatchawan, Canada published a study based on spacing of the holes in the bone instrument. Fink maintains that it was tuned to the Diatonic scale, and that our present day ideas of what is musical, may be handed down from our cave dwelling cousins.

There are many theories about the disappearance of Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis , but it is unknown whether he interbred and disappeared, or was killed off by his modern cousins. It is also unknown why he did not adapt to the changing climate, and come to dominate the grasslands.

Palaeolithic Man - The Magdalanians:

Our "modern" palaeolithic cousins (Homo Sapiens Sapiens), exploded into the great grasslands and a golden age of the hunter-gatherer followed. These new hunters have been studied all across Europe under a variety of names, but in the end they had more in common with each other than they had differences. Much of the early research on them was carried out in France, where we will focus our attention next.

It was Magdalanian Man and his equivalent who occupied much of Europe, and left us a legacy of wonderfully naturalistic cave paintings, such as those at Lascaux, France. It is said that if you stare at the Lascaux murals for a time, you can see the animals breathing. Surely they do have a remarkable feeling of motion to them. The Magdalanians were highly mobile, and are thought to have moved seasonally with the herds. There is good evidence of some tribes covering hundreds of kilometers, and some evidence of trade over great distances. They probably spent very little time in caves and some believe the caves were used only for religious ceremonies. Ruins of dwellings made of animal hides weighed down at the base with heavy Mammoth bones have been found in the Ukraine.

Plainly the Magdalanians were well fed. A camp site at Mezin, in southern Russia yielded the bones of 116 Mammoths, 3 Rhinoceros, 65 horses, 17 Musk-ox, 5 Bison, 1 Giant Deer, 83 Reindeer, 7 bear, and assorted lesser beasts. When a large kill was made, neighbouring villagers would arrive to share in the feast. With a Mammoth in the larder, there was time to devote to painting, carving and inventing better tools and weapons. Nothing is known of palaeolithic recipes, but there is no evidence that their cuisine was inferior to their other arts and crafts.

The golden age of the hunt was soon over in Europe. Starting about 12,000 BC, the boreal forest began replacing the grasslands, as the ice cap retreated. The boreal forest was in turn replaced in the south by deciduous forest. Forests support a huge biomass of plant life, along with squirrels mice, and birds, but they offer no place for a herd to graze. Even deer, who may live in the forest, feed in meadows. The arrival of the forests greatly reduced the tonnage of fresh meat on the hoof, and with it came a temporary reduction in the human population. A new harder age for man was dawning. It would be an age in which the palaeolithic hunter-gatherer would become the mesolithic hunter-fisher.

An early candidate for the title of "First Irishman" would have to be Neanderthal Man. He is known to have lived in France and Germany, and he could have got as far as today's Irish coast, but if he did there is just no evidence. A better candidate is palaeolithic man in the form of the Magdalanians, who hunted all across Europe, and who were mobile enough to easily qualify. Again, there is no known evidence of their having visited. But there are other candidates. Let's see what the researchers have found.

About 1928, E. K. Tratman, an Irish archaeologist, began a dig in the Kilgreany Cave, along the coast of County Waterford, near the town of Cappagh. Someone had suggested to him that man might have lived in Ireland during the last Ice Age, and if so, that they probably dwelt along the thin crescent of coastal land not covered by the ice cap. If indeed man was present at that time, it would have been a difficult subsistence, and so he would not have been present in large numbers. Finding a good site would be a matter of pure luck or genius. After careful examination of potential sites all along the south coast, Prof. Tratman picked his site, and what he found there would change Irish archaeology.

During the dig, many tools, and several fire places were found, along with two human skeletons. Skeleton "A", as she came to be called, was later carbon-dated to about 2630 BC. This date surprised no one. Tratman started a small commotion however, by dating skeleton "B" back into the Ice Age, because the layer in which it was found also contained bones from Ice Age fauna. Subsequently, a number of learned gentlemen questioned his dating, and Prof. Movius mounted a convincing disproof, one premise of which was that Skeleton "B" was of the same race as skeleton "A". This fact will become important later.

Because of a protective treatment applied to skeleton "B" by Tratman, the bones could not be carbon-dated, so it looked like the end of the Ice Age theory. However, a Dr. Kenneth Oakley of the British Museum, later performed fluorine and nitrogen "replacement" tests on the bones, and announced that he believed they could date to before 9000 BC! Ireland was back into the Ice Age.

Mesolithic Man - The Maglemosians:

When the ice cap covering the British Isles retreated, mesolithic man crossed the land bridge into England, and later crossed the Irish Sea, into Ireland. The Irish Sea was much narrower then, and not as deep. Signs of an influx of people into Ireland starting about 6800 BC are easily found in Ulster, at the opposite end of the country. Human habitation came to England earlier. Habitation at Star Carr, in northern England, may date back to before ten thousand years BC. These "Maglemose" people, one of the Western Mediterranean mesolithic cultures, hunted and fished, and gradually spread across most of the island. The first cave dwelling pioneers along the south Irish coast have left us very few clues as to how they subsisted, but we know they hung on until the next wave of immigrants arrived.

As the ice sheet retreated across Europe, grazing animals followed the bloom of lush grass left in its wake. Paleolithic culture reached its peak at this time, and this is when the great cave paintings were done. As the world warmed, boreal forest moved in to replace the rich grasslands, and the great herds of ungulates disappeared, to be replaced by deer, beaver, and smaller fauna. Maglemosian culture was a reaction to this less plentiful Europe, and the Maglemosians expanded up the coast of Europe, initially, where they could make an abundant living. They were a more practical, if less artistic people. Grahame Clark says "Even when they occupied the same caves, there is no evidence that they executed works of art to anything like the same standard. ... such art as they practiced was abstract in character composed in the main of geometrical designs, many of them traceable to Paleolithic sources." Clark suggests that the abstract curvilinear designs of later neolithic peoples may have come from Maglemosian art.

Later, as fresh water fish returned to the lakes and rivers, the Maglemosians moved inland, where they showed a preference for dwelling near water. Away from their coastal caves, they lived on platforms made of brush wood, elevated above reed swamps, and in rectangular huts with layers of bark for floors, and walls made of small branches rammed into the ground, and bent together above, to form a roof. They tended to settle in one place. Analysis of their bones from graves at seaside settlements show a marine diet, while bones found further inland show a forest diet.

These people are most familiar to us as the "Bog People" of northern Europe. A number of remarkably well preserved bodies have been dug out of bogs, where the acidity and absence of oxygen caused by plant detritus, had tanned and preserved them, turning their skin black. In one case, the body of a young woman was found, her head completely shaven, and apparently the victim of an execution. Why she was executed must remain a matter for speculation, but Seamus Heaney, the Irish Nobel laureate (literature) has concluded, perhaps correctly, that her crime was adultery.

                                                                           Seamus Heaney

Inland, lumber permitting, they fashioned slender canoes from tree trunks. One found at Tybrind Vig, in Denmark, was 9.5 meters long, 65 cm wide, and 30 cm deep, fitted with a stern board. Along the coast, where lumber was less plentiful, they are thought to have used skin boats with a wooden framework, as were used in Ireland until certainly the fifth century AD. Elegantly shaped and decorated paddles have been found, as well as three pronged fish spears, of a design still in use today. They had seine fish nets with floats, fish traps, lobster pots with stone weights, bone fish hooks with barbs, and line. They fished cod, herring, mackerel, salmon, eel, and flounder by the sea, and inland at Kunda, Estonia, piles of pike bone have been found.

One boat had a hearth at one end, made of hardened mud, with a sand interior. Whether fire was used to attract fish at night, or for cooking, is not known. (Anyone who has had fresh pike cooked over a fire will be able to arrive at his own conclusion. And no, there was no evidence of a beer cooler on the boat!) As for fishing by fire light; this is recognized as an effective technique to the extent that it has been made illegal in many countries.

Coastal dwellers ate seal, dolphin, whale, sea fowl, mussels, oysters, mollusks, clams and lobster. Duck, goose, and swan were eaten everywhere, and inland mammals were more in vogue. At Star Carr, in northern England, remains of 80 Red Deer, 30 Roe Deer, 11 Elk, 9 Auroch, 5 pigs, and many smaller animals were found. They hunted with bow and arrow, and spear. Their bows were graceful and contemporary in appearance. Arrows and spears were tipped with flint blades, or wooden knobs for stunning birds. They were accomplished fowlers, and did not hesitate to go after big game, such as the Auroch.

Farming was not practiced by the Maglemose. they cultivated no crops, kept no domestic animals other than dogs, and made no pottery.

They buried their dead in cemeteries, and with some evidence of reverence. At Skateholm, Denmark people were buried in deer skin cloths, decorated with rings of sewn animal teeth and snail shells. Red ochre was sprinkled around the bodies, including those of seven dogs, buried separately, but in the same cemetery. In one case, a man was buried with what may have been his own dog, at his feet.

By and large, the evidence points to a life of hard work but to a fair level of success. Mesolithic culture outlived the arrival of neolithic farmers, possibly because of a trade in fish, game, and fur, for bread and wine, which seems to have flourished between the two groups. The life of a hunter-fisher can not have been without benefits. One can sometimes buy salmon, smoked by the Haida of British Columbia, and it is so good it would bring tears to your eyes! Partridge and pheasant, stuffed with a large onion, and cooked with spices is equally irresistible, and fresh pike from a cold stream, is a close second. How long would one of our mesolithic cousins tolerate our modern convenience foods, if he could drop in for a visit?

Neolithic Man - The Danubians:

The next wave brought the "neolithic revolution" to Ireland. About 3800 BC, the first neolithic agriculturists began arriving in large numbers. They had arrived earlier in England, by boat, long after the land bridge had vanished beneath the sea. They had worked their way across that country leaving farms, towns, and monuments in their wake. These people, possibly Danubian Indo-Europeans, arrived with herds of domestic animals: sheep, and oxen, and they planted cereal crops such as barley and wheat. They promptly set about clearing back the forest with their finely polished stone felling axes. If the North-American experience counts for anything, clearing the land would have brought the new settlers into conflict with the aboriginal hunter-fishers, and certainly into increasing contact.

Covered pits have been found in Ireland, with charcoal in the bottom, and signs of habitation. One pit was carbon dated to 3675 BC, and it has been ascribed to the new neolithic settlers. Four hundred years later, our neolithic friends turn up in fairly sophisticated wooden houses! Why would a people capable of rather advanced architecture, live in a pit? Could Irish mythology offer an answer?

Tales of the "wee folk" or leprechauns, tell of tiny people who could appear and vanish, as if by magic. Similar tales are told in North America, of the Indians, who could vanish so suddenly, it was as if they had been "swallowed up by the earth." The mythology also holds that the "wee folk" lived in a world beneath the ground. Could these tales be nothing less than an account of the meeting of mesolithic and neolithic man? Could the pits have belonged to the aboriginals? If so, it is just one more instance (after Troy) of a myth turning out to be a folk memory of a distant and forgotten past.

The more we learn of the neolithic farmers, the smarter they get! Their architecture was as sophisticated in stone as it was in wood. Evidence has been dug out of bogs showing they practiced an advanced agriculture, using rather evolved plowing techniques to control erosion and flooding. These early farmers were the builders of the famous mounds and passage tombs, which are more densely packed into Ireland than into any other country. These were the same people who built Stonehenge in England. Prof. O'Kelly has proven that some of these structures doubled as observatories, and could mark the exact time of the Winter solstice. Much of who the Irish are today, in terms of both culture and genetics, must owe to these neolithic farmers and builders.

Now remember skeleton "A", dating to around 2630 BC. If skeleton "A" is the same race as skeleton "B", more than six thousand years earlier, then plainly, the mesolithic aboriginals were still about, long after the neolithic revolution. The two groups must have coexisted, for over a thousand years. At least some of the "Maglemose" aboriginals had continued their subsistence hunting and fishing, in the shadow of their prospering neolithic neighbours. Evidence from elsewhere in Europe suggests that a business partnership arose between the two peoples, based on trade. To what extent they merged into the neolithic population, or simply diminished in number as their old habitat was cleared and farmed, we do not know. Did they leave us their genetic legacy, or vanish into extinction?

The Celto-Ligurians:

                                                                   John Hewitt

About 2100 BC, the "Bell-Beaker" people began to arrive in Ireland. These were more technologically advanced people, who made and used metal and finely polished stone tools. They are named for the bell-shaped vessels they left behind, which mark their passage all across Europe. It has been suggested that these people may have brought with them the original language which evolved into Irish Gaelic. Colin McEvedy points out that "the Bell-Beaker distribution map resembles the Celto-Ligurian world of a millennium later too exactly for coincidence", and he suggests they were the same people. The Bronze Age had arrived in Ireland, and if McEvedy is right, so too had the Celts.

The Late Bronze Age begins around 1200 BC, and brings to Ireland "a whole new range of bronze implements and weapons, such as socketed axe-heads and swords." This is an age strongly identified with the appearance of the "hill forts", which actually only date back to the seventh century BC. Hill forts are a mark of Hallstatt Celtic culture, which Simon James traces from 1200 BC to 475 BC, in Europe. McEvedy does not show Hallstatt culture in Europe before 560 BC, and he first mentions the Urnfield Celts in 1200 BC. He never shows Hallstatt culture in Ireland. James, on the other hand does not use the term "Urnfield Celts", which may explain the difference.

The later Celts:

If a new people had arrived at all, it is not clear who they were, and in fact there is little evidence of a massive invasion after the earlier appearance of the neolithic farming people. By 1200 BC, the Urnfield Celts, or at least their culture, had occupied much of what is now France and Germany but they were never to make it past the French coast. McEvedy does not show Hallstatt culture in England until 560 BC to 480 BC, although the dating of the Irish hill forts calls this date into question. By 375 BC, the La Tene Celts had swept across most of the old Hallstatt territory in Europe, and were approaching the French coast.

No one can tell what happened during the Bronze and early Iron Ages. There is little evidence of a full scale invasion, but much evidence for change. What the artifacts may be showing us is a succession of rapid social changes which swept across Europe. In fact, if you look at the distribution maps for the various peoples, you will notice that the Urnfield Celts arise from within the territory covered by the Celto-Ligurians, and expand to cover the same territory. Next the Hallstatt Celts appear within the Urnfield territory, and the same replacement happens again. The process repeats itself with the La Tene Celts, who are suddenly renamed Gauls, all within the same borders. Perhaps we are just witnessing the spread of new ideas through the Celtic dominated population.

There have been geographic changes as well. The land bridge between England and Europe had long since sunk beneath the North Sea, isolating England, and the Irish Sea had widened and deepened, making Ireland less accessible. We see new cultures sweep across Europe to the Atlantic coast, and then hesitate a while before crossing the Channel into England. If England was a sanctuary at the coast of Europe, then Ireland was the same to England. McEvedy shows Ireland unaffected by invasions from the time of the Bell-Beaker people (Celto-Ligurians) until 67 AD.

There were changes of course. Around 500 BC the Iron Age begins to arrive in Ireland, and with it, improved tools, iron pots and household fixtures. Either because of a warming climate, or new iron based technologies, the population of the islands began to increase. By 100 BC Irish bogs were being drained for more farmland, and much of the forest had been cleared. This is seen as the La Tene Celtic period by Irish archaeologists. By 67 AD the Romans had established themselves in the south of England, and had begun dismantling the cultures they overran there. This brings us face to face with one of the mysteries of Irish history.

The Romans:

Until recently, it was well known that the Romans never invaded Ireland. If they did not, then why not? Ireland was a strong agricultural producer, and Rome conquered where there was money to be made. Many believe that Scotland was not conquered because the Scots were too fierce for the Romans, but in fact the Scots lived by subsistence farming, and that was not profitable enough to interest Rome. Ireland is flatter, and more fertile, and should have been of some interest. Recently the ruins of a sizeable "Roman" town have been discovered at Drumanagh, outside of Dublin. The first reports of its presence were carried in the "Sunday Times", and were based on the discovery of Roman coins at the site. A grave yard near the town appears to be of Roman origin, and contains Roman remains. The controversy still rages over the discoveries, and whether or not Drumanagh was a Roman town.

The May/June '96 issue of Archaeology had this to say: "The claim was based on the discovery a number of years ago of Roman coins dating to the reigns of Titus (A.D. 79-81), Trajan (98-117), and Hadrian (117-138), as well as Roman brooches and copper ingots. Over the years other Roman artifacts have been found in Ireland. Most archaeologists regard these as evidence not of conquest but of trade with Roman Britain, raiding of coastal settlements in Britain, or the presence of Romanized Britons in Ireland. According to Barry Raftery of University College Dublin, Drumanagh "may well have been (and probably was) a major trading station linking Ireland and Roman Britain. It was probably populated with a mixture of Irish, Romano-British, Gallo-Roman, and others, doubtless including a few genuine Romans as well."

Irish agriculture:

Since the neolithic invasion in 3800 BC, Ireland had been largely brought under the plow, first by its neolithic farmers, and later by the Bell-Beaker people. Ireland has more neolithic monuments per unit area than any other country in Europe, and their number suggests a fairly large, well organized population. The arrival of the first Celts would not have filled a vacuum by any means, and it seems likely that they did not arrive in great numbers. Its increasing wealth and isolation set Ireland up as a unique sanctuary, and its long fairly peaceful history would set the country up as an attractive target for later Viking plunder.

That ancient agriculture was highly productive, has been shown by Peter Reynolds' long-term experimental Celtic farm, set up at Butser, in Hampshire, England. The farm was modeled on what had been learned of Celtic farms. It had a round farm house with thatched roof, and wattle and daub sides, woven branch fences, and wooden farm implements. The livestock was picked to most resemble that of earlier times. Dexter cattle were chosen as closest to the extinct Celtic Shorthorn, and plowing was done with Dexter oxen, pulling a wooden "ard", which is a primitive wedge shaped plough. The farm, which was manned full time by resident "student Celts", produced some surprises. Grain production far exceeded predictions, and generally the farm was too successful to fit long held beliefs about early farming. The farm was successful enough that it would produce a surplus at the endo of its first year, which suggests that England, and possibly Ireland, may have been a major player in agri-business in Roman times.

Celtic farms were often pock marked with mysterious pits, which could be several meters deep. These pits were wider at the bottom, so they resembled an Erlenmeyer flask in cross section. Charred grain had been found in some, so the Butser farmers experimented with the pits as storage silos. They filled one to the top with grain, and sealed it over with wet clay, making it air-tight. Soil was placed over the clay, so it would not dry out and crack. Moisture from the surrounding soil caused a thin layer of the grain in contact with the soil to germinate, which in turn used up the oxygen within the pit, putting the bulk of the contents into suspended animation. Grain can be kept indefinitely this way, until the seal is broken.

Why is Celtic farming relevant? Because we think that agriculture did not change greatly from the arrival of the Neolithic farmers until about 100 BC, when there seems to have been a sudden leap in productivity and population, often associated with the arrival of La Tene Celtic culture. The Celts ploughed with oxen and wooden "ards" as had been used since neolithic times. We tend to assume that farming has always been done with horse power, but the horse and the iron plough were fairly recent innovations. In fact, oxen so predominate farming history that the Oxford English Dictionary defines an acre as "that amount of land that can be ploughed by one man and one yoke of oxen in one day." This all points to a large and stable population in Ireland from about 3800 BC to about 100 BC, when there was a sudden increase in population. If so, the Celtic invasion would have been small in number, and the Celts may, as some historians have suggested, merely have moved in as an upper class, controlling the resident population.

The Irish.

Such a finding would make the modern Irishman not so much a Celt as a mixture of several peoples. The Celts were described by the Romans as huge men, with red hair, ruddy complections, and stern blue eyes. While there are such people in modern Ireland, not all the Irish fit the description. Green eyes and dark hair are relatively common, so it seems likely that the Irish come from a number of different lines. The country's long and relatively peaceful isolation, has brought together at least three different and distinct peoples to produce a stable and unique folk culture, and along with it, a literary tradition which today is one of the oldest in the world.

The Mhac an t'Saoirs.

Migrations of large numbers of people required time and where large bodies of water had to be crossed, boats. Large migrations over water must only have occurred after some part of the population had taken to the sea for their livelihood, and a ready supply of boats and a community of able seamen had developed. It is quite possible that these sea people had inhabited the islands of the Irish Sea at or before the invasion of Ireland, and that they were still living the same way millennia later, when they carried the ancestors of the original invaders back to Scotland.

If you abandon the traditional view, that the Irish and Scottish Mhac an t'Saoirs are two separate peoples, and admit the possibility that they have a common origin in these sea-going islanders, a lot comes into focus. The geographic distribution; the similarity of name and occupation begin to make sense. The MacIntyre legend of their people arriving from "islands to the north" rings true. Suddenly Clan Mhac an t'Saoir becomes much more ancient, and we are faced with more broad minded view of history.

One surprise in researching this article was the scarcity of information on Irish prehistory and archaeology. Books on Celtic history, and Irish Celtic history, abound; so much so that one is led to believe the Irish are the Celts. The lack of agreement between historians in their comments on Irish prehistory was another surprise. That the Romans could have built a small city on Irish soil, and peopled it for over a hundred years, without leaving a single trace in the annals of history, should surprise everyone. This is a difficult subject, and we would appreciate any corrections or additions to this article you might suggest.

Bibliography:

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