Neolithic and Bronze Age Landscapes of North Mayo: Report 2011

communication skills have played a very big part in the later developments of the research in taking
the findings to a wider public and to the decision makers in the later development of the project.
Archaeological excavation and research has continued in Belderrig valley in recent years with a new
programme of research into an earlier pre-farming settlement of fisher-gatherers on a low cliff edge
overlooking the seashore in Belderg More townland. The research work is led by Dr. Graeme
Warren on a site originally identified by Patrick Caulfield. Apart from its significance as the major
late Mesolithic site identified west of the Shannon it may emerge as central to an understanding of
the subsequent settlement of the valley because of the virtually contiguous Neolithic walls (Warren
2009).
Scientific Research associated with the Archaeological Projects.
From the initial excavations at the Behy tomb in 1963, the potential of the bogland location was
seen as significant for pollen analysis and Radiocarbon dating. The first dates were received from
the Belfast Radiocarbon Laboratory. Professor John Moore of the Botany Department in UCD
carried out some early pollen analysis in which he identified a ‘landnam’ phase in deeper bog to the
west which he examined. Another result of his preliminary work on pollen analysis at Behy was in
recognising the dominance of pine in the arboreal pollen(Moore 1979).
Professor Martin Downes investigated the potential of the pine stumps for tree-ring analysis in the
1970s. At the time the thrust of the tree-ring analysis in Belfast was to complete and extend the
dendrochronological sequence as a calibration for Radiocarbon dating and there was little interest in
site-specific or short sequence ring matching. The work demonstrated the potential for identifying
the direction of spread of the trees onto the bog.
The pine phase in the bogs of North Mayo, first commented on by Otway marks such a significant
change in the botanical record that it should be recognisable even where the tree stumps do not
survive. The fact that pine pollen is one of the larger pollens and most readily identifiable led
Downes to develop a rapid method of seeking the pine peak in the bogs with a view to using it as a
chronological marker. Ms. Antonine Healy undertook the application of the method on Céide Fields
for her M.A. thesis in 1992.
In 1991, as part of the ongoing research into Céide Fields, Dr. Karen Molloy of the Palaeoecology
Laboratory in NUIG was commissioned to carry out pollen analysis in the area. This research was
expanded to a more extensive research project on Céide Fields in association with Professor Michael
O’Connell of the same Laboratory which led to the definitive publication of the long sequence
monolith from a deep very confined bog basin in Glenulra townland(Molloy and O’Connell 1995).
The monolith indicated a ‘landnam phenomenon of herbaceous replacement of arboreal dominance
with grassland dominant for a relatively short period. The pollen analysis also showed sporadic
farming activity in the millennia after the main occupation of the fields, something which could be
expected given that parts of the fields had very limited growth of bog in some places. A
controversial addendum to the report which proposed an alternative interpretation of the
archaeology of the field boundaries does not diminish the important contribution which the primary
botanical analysis has provided for the nature and duration of the period of main occupation of the
fields. The Radiocarbon dates associated with the Glenulra peat monolith are in agreement with the
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