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Northern Ireland's Historic Environment

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Northern Ireland's Historic Environment VOLUME 6 ISSUE 2 Environmental Fact Sheet March 2008 Northern Ireland’s Historic Environment NORTHERN IRELAND ENVIRONMENT LINK ENVIRONMENTAL FACT SHEET Introduction Northern Ireland has a long and fascinating history of human occupation. For nearly 10,000 years people have been making their homes on the island and leaving their marks on the landscape and environment. There is hardly a place here that does not bear the imprint of human use and habitation, and much of the landscape and environment which we see today has been influenced, if not determined, by our forbearers. This Fact Sheet presents the views of some of the foremost authorities on our archaeological heritage on many aspects of that heritage. It spans academic research, commercial excavations and government protection, with a final section looking at various ways which the heritage can promoted to a wider audience. Although Northern Ireland is often seen as a divided society, our common heritage goes back much farther than the divisions. By promoting this rich common heritage we can move forward into a united future through community development, promoting heritage tourism and encouraging local pride. The Northern Ireland Archaeology Forum was launched in October of last year by Tony Robinson and the Time Team. The Forum aims to raise archaeology up the public and political agendas and to ensure that we learn from the past about how to live today in harmony with our environment and respecting our heritage. A future Fact Sheet will concentrate on the built heritage. Northern Ireland Environment Link Northern Ireland Environment Link is the forum and networking body for organisations interested in the environment of Northern Ireland. It assists members to develop views on issues affecting the environment and to influence policy and practice impacting on the natural and built environment of Northern Ireland. Full Members Mo nk st own Co mmunit y For u m Greencastle A rea Residents Group International Tree Foundation NI Cycling Initiative U ls t er Archaeological S oc i e ty Ulster Society for the P rotection of the Countryside Northern Ireland’s Historic Environment 2 March 2008 NORTHERN IRELAND ENVIRONMENT LINK ENVIRONMENTAL FACT SHEET Contents Section One: Setting the Scene 4 Valuing heritage, understanding where we come from Gabriel Cooney, School of Archaeology, University College Dublin 5 A short history of people in Northern Ireland Paul Logue, Built Heritage, Environment and Heritage Service, DoE 7 Written on the landscape Thomas McErlean, Centre for Maritime Archaeology (CMA), University of Ulster 9 The value and extent of the historic environment in Northern Ireland Claire Foley, Built Heritage, Environment and Heritage Service, DoE Section Two: Learning from the Past 11 Lessons from the past Colm J. Donnelly; School of Geography, Archaeology & Palaeoecology; Queen’s University Belfast 12 Climate change - adaptation and archaeology Mike Heyworth and Gill Chitty, Council for British Archaeology 14 The Nendrum tide mills - tidal energy in the 7th and 8th centuries AD Thomas McErlean, Centre for Maritime Archaeology, University of Ulster 16 Excavations at Dunnyneill Island, Strangford Lough Philip Macdonald, Centre for Archaeological Fieldwork, Queen’s University Belfast 19 Conserving the cultural landscape Nicki Whitehouse; Palaeoecology Centre; School of Geography, Archaeology & Palaeoecology; QUB Section Three: Techniques and Protection 21 Tools to protect the heritage Claire Foley, Built Heritage, Environment and Heritage Service, DoE 24 Cross-border heritage co-operation: an archaeological perspective Ian Doyle, The Heritage Council for Ireland 25 Archaeological fieldwork - a thing of the past? Tim Howard and Peter Hinton, Institute of Field Archaeologists 27 Developer funded archaeology Stephen Gilmore, Northern Archaeological Consultancy Ltd Section Four: Raising Archaeology up the Agenda 29 To have and to hold: archaeology and the Ulster Museum Cormac Bourke, Ulster Museum 30 Engaging with Archaeology Days Malachy Conway, The National Trust Northern Ireland 32 Young Archaeologists’ Club: An opportunity for 6-16 year olds to learn about their past Naomi Carver; Centre for Archaeological Fieldwork; School of Geography, Archaeology & Palaeoecology; QUB 35 Downpatrick Young Archaeologists’ Club Mike King, Down County Museum 36 The Ulster Archaeological Society William Dunlop, Ulster Archaeological Society 37 Northern Ireland Archaeology Forum Sue Christie, Northern Ireland Environment Link March 2008 3 Northern Ireland’s Historic Environment NORTHERN IRELAND ENVIRONMENT LINK ENVIRONMENTAL FACT SHEET Valuing heritage, understanding where we come from Gabriel Cooney, School of Archaeology, University College Dublin When most people think of What makes Northern Ireland, archaeology what comes to mind is indeed the whole island of Ireland, what archaeologists do – excavate, special is that it has such a rich and not what they are setting out tapestry of archaeological evidence to achieve – to understand the past from the past. This of course has using a wide variety of approaches, an economic value as a tourist including excavation. But that attraction, from megalithic tombs concept of archaeological excavation like Newgrange to castles such as is very useful as a way of thinking Dunluce Castle. But even more about archaeology as a form of fundamentally it is the physical heritage. When archaeologists expression of who we are, and excavate an urban or rural site where we have come from. Of they are encountering and dealing course the history of Ireland is with the material remains of past also one that has seen conflict human lives. That in essence is Dunluce Castle, County Antrim and contestation and part of the Setting the Scene what archaeology consists of; the challenge of understanding the past physical expression of life and archaeology; looking at the course and presenting it today is putting societies in the past. This can be of human history as it was created the past in context, relating it to the seen at a large scale in terms of by human actions and decisions. present, understanding how history how people shaped the landscape What makes archaeology special can been seen in very different and environment, at the medium is that it is the only discipline ways. Today, of course, there is also scale of how they organised their and approach that allows us to the exciting challenge of presenting lives and spaces in the places they explore right back to the first the past to an increasingly culturally built, where they lived, played and human settlement of Ireland diverse society, where a significant prayed and at the small, human about 8000 BC. That exploration number of people have come to live scale it can be observed in the is complemented by written on the island who have little or no things they made, used and lost. records, from the middle of the first link with or knowledge of the Irish millennium AD as we move into the past. It is in the nature of things that the historic period. This focus on the landscape, buildings and technology material world created by people We are living in a time of great change over time. This of course brings archaeology right up into change, when our material is the other fascinating aspect of contemporary times. surroundings can alter very quickly. ‘That you don’t know what you have got ‘til it is gone’, a snippet from a Joni Mitchell song, encapsulates why it is important to record, document and disseminate information about the archaeological heritage. We need to understand that heritage to understand where we have come from and we need to take that knowledge into account in planning and changing for the future, to ensure that we have the best evidence-based policies and strategies to make decisions about how we sustain that heritage and Corrstown, Bronze Age Village, County Derry live today. Northern Ireland’s Historic Environment 4 March 2008 NORTHERN IRELAND ENVIRONMENT LINK ENVIRONMENTAL FACT SHEET A short history of settlement in Northern Ireland Paul Logue, Built Heritage, Environment and Heritage Service, DoE In Northern Ireland archaeologists brought with it a need to enclose can trace human habitation back the landscape. Examples of Setting the Scene to around 9,000 years ago, in what prehistoric field walls have been we term the Mesolithic or Middle found in Northern Ireland, often in Stone Age. Our first settlers were bog or upland where they survive hunter gatherers who used flint below the peat. Indeed, the growth and stone tools and survived by of the peat itself was somewhat hunting, fishing and the gathering initiated by our Neolithic ancestors of wild plant foods. Their landscape in their clearing and farming of the would have initially consisted of landscape. The settlement pattern hazel scrub along with gradually would have been a dispersed establishing woods of larger trees one, with increasing clearings such as oak, ash, elm and pine. In in the virgin forest occupied by time much of the landscape would groups of clustered houses with have come to resemble the wooded their associated enclosures, crops slopes of Belfast’s Cave Hill today, and livestock. To this picture we Craigs Court Tomb, County interspersed with rivers and lakes. can add the megalithic tombs of Antrim Northern Ireland in which we have The largest wild game animal Europe and by 6,000 years ago the our first evidence for religious available to our earliest ancestors effects of this were beginning to be beliefs. Various tomb types were was the wild pig. Birds such as seen in Northern Ireland. Dating to constructed during the Neolithic the wood pigeon and woodcock around 4,000 BC, archaeologists period and their morphology and also provided food, but most of have identified the remains of contents have led archaeologists to the ‘meat’ element involved in a cereals and domestic animal bones see this period of our past as one Mesolithic meal would have come in that mark the introduction of of ancestor worship with a focus the form of fish.
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