COUNTRY Heritage

NATIONAL MONUMENTS AN ROINN EALAÍON, OIDREACHTA AGUS GAELTACHTA | DEPARTMENT OF ARTS, HERITAGE AND THE GAELTACHT Ireland’s earliest farmhouses

n the history of mankind, one of the most profound changes This is the second in a series of 12 articles from the National Monuments that affected the development of civilisation was the adop- Service of the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht to introduce tionI of what came to be known as Farmers Journal readers to the archaeology of Ireland and to highlight the the Neolithic Revolution – a lifestyle dependent on cereal-growing and vital role of the farming community in preserving our heritage. animal husbandry, which spread from Mesopotamia and the Middle East. In Ireland, the change from the hunter-gatherer economy of the Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age, circa 7000-4000BC) to an economy based on agriculture would have implied a new way of looking at the land- scape. The settled farming lifestyle The Neolithic house would have been in stark contrast would have been a to the mobile existence of Ireland’s robust building and Mesolithic inhabitants. construction would Typical monuments of the Neo- have involved much lithic period (the New Stone Age, of the expertise of the circa 4000-2000BC) are the highly Stone Age carpenter. visible and intriguing megalithic tombs that dot the Irish landscape. Passage tombs like Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth in the Brú na Bóinne complex in Co Meath indi- cate the high degree of organisation and social structure that formed the Picture: © backbone of Neolithic society. Less visible but equally as im- portant for our understanding are

the domestic arrangements of the Claire Breen, National Monuments Service people who occupied the land- scape. Ancient remains originally constructed with organic materials leave no traces at surface level for the archaeologist to identify. It is no surprise, then, that houses that date from over fi ve and a half thousand years ago are identifi ed (and, in- deed, are expected to be identifi ed) during topsoil operations associ- ated with modern infrastructural development works such as pipe- line and motorway construction and quarrying. Reconstruction of a Neolithic house at the Irish National Heritage Park, Ferrycarrig, Co Wexford.

RECENT FINDS loured band of soil forming a square speculative model of the building sited dangerously close to internal Neolithic Ireland has been high- To date, around 80 Neolithic houses or rectangular pattern against the that originally stood at that loca- upright posts) and traces of internal lighted by archaeologists Eoin have been discovered at 50 sites. lighter colour of exposed topsoil. tion. The Neolithic house would divisions to create rooms. Grogan and Jessica Smyth. Smyth Most have been discovered in The dark-coloured soil is the visible have been a robust building and In the days before the chimney, states that “the island-wide simi- recent years, leading Professor Ga- remains of the fi ll of the trenches construction would have involved there is no doubt that ventilation larities in materials and methods of briel Cooney of UCD to refer to “a that once held the wooden walls of much of the expertise of the Stone would have been an issue. With re- construction, in size and date, and housing boom in the Neolithic” in the house. Age carpenter. There is evidence gard to the roofi ng of such houses, in associated features such as pits, Ireland. The houses are found as in- for several different techniques of the evidence is not easily recog- suggest the existence on some level dividual structures and sometimes HOUSE STRUCTURE house construction. Some have nised owing to the vulnerability of of a commonly held house ‘tem- in groups of two or three. There are The trenches provide the outline of timber frames, upright posts and this part of the structure. It is likely, plate’, or a common awareness of also larger clusters such as those at the houses, square to rectangular walls constructed of vertical planks; however, that thatch would have the ‘correct’ way to construct these Thornhill in Co Derry, where at least in plan, many measuring between others show evidence of wattle been commonly employed. buildings.” fi ve such structures were discovered six and eight metres long and four walls, sometimes combined with If this is the case, there is no surrounded by a series of palisades. and seven metres wide. There are plank walls. INFLUENCES doubt that knowledge of agricultur- At Corbally in Co Kildare, seven also a smaller number of houses Excavated remains indicate that There is evidence of prehistoric al methods and techniques would structures in two distinct groups in the larger range of nine to 11 in many cases the walls carried ritual practices at a large number have spread in a similar fashion. have been discovered. There is in- metres long and six to eight metres the weight of the roof, while there of houses, such as the deliberate To fi nd the places where the suffi cient evidence to say for certain wide. Some have end walls that are other examples of large posts deposition of broken pottery and people who tilled the land cooked, who would have built and used are slightly curved. Curiously, such providing additional support for the stone objects (arrowheads, stone ate and slept is exciting for the the houses but it is likely that they measurements are often refl ected roof. Doorways or entrance gaps axe heads and quern fragments) in archaeologist. Our understanding of would have been built by individual in the average rural bungalow of can be seen in a number of houses; the foundation trenches and post- Neolithic houses is just one aspect families and that the clusters may modern times. at Ballyglass, Co Mayo, for example, holes. Perhaps the builders were of early farming in Ireland. There is have been used by extended family In spite of their truncated the entrance was located at the paying respect to the earth that so much more to be discovered. groups. nature, these buried slot-trenches northwest corner of the structure. sustained them. Typically, the remains of a Neo- contain enough information to In many instances there is The similarity of plans and NEXT WEEK THE TOMBS lithic house appear as a dark-co- allow the archaeologist to build a evidence for a hearth (sometimes construction techniques across OF OUR ANCESTORS

Please remember that all recorded archaeological monuments are protected under the National Monuments Acts 1930-2004. Visitors to archaeological monuments on lands in private ownership should request permission from the landowner. If you would like to know more about the archaeological monuments on your land or in your locality, please visit www.archaeology.ie. Any questions or feedback can be forwarded to [email protected]

12 21 January 2012 COUNTRY LIVING