Neolithic and Bronze Age Landscapes of North Mayo: Report 2011

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Bibliography Caulfield, S. 1978. Neolithic Fields: The Irish Evidence. pp. 137-143 in H.C. Bowen and P.J. Fowler (eds.) Early Land Allotment. British Archaeological Reports 48. Caulfield, S. 1983. The Neolithic Settlement of North Connaught. pp.195-215 in T. Reeves-Smyth and F. Hamond (eds.) Landscape Archaeology in Ireland. British Archaeological Reports 116. Caulfield, S.,O’Donnell, R.G. and Mitchell, P.I. 1998. 14C Dating of a Neolithic Field System at Céide Fields, County Mayo, Ireland. Radiocarbon 40, 629-640. de Valéra, R. 1951. A Group of ‘Horned Cairns’ near Ballycastle, Co. Mayo. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 81, 161-197. de Valéra, R. 1960. The Court Cairns of Ireland. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 60C, 9-140. de Valéra, R. 1965. Transeptal Court Cairns. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 95, 5-37. de Valéra,R. and Ó Nualláin,S. 1952. Journal of the Galway Historical and Archaeological Society 25, 47-51. de Valéra,R. and Ó Nualláin, S. 1964. Survey of the Megalithic Tombs of Ireland. Volume 2 County Mayo. Stationery Office. Dublin. Hencken, H. 1939. A Long Cairn at Creevykeel, Co. Sligo. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 69, 53-98. Hinch, J.deW. 1913. The Shelly Drift of Glenulra and Belderrig, Co. Mayo. The Irish Naturalist 22,1-6. Molloy, K. and O’Connell, M. 1995. Palaeological investigations towards the reconstruction of environment and land-use changes during prehistory at Céide Fields, western Ireland. Problemeder Kustenforschung im sudlichen Nordseegebiet 23,187-225. Ó Nualláin, S. 1972. A Neolithic House at Ballyglass near Ballycastle, Co. Mayo. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 102, 49-57. Otway,C. 1841. Sketches in Erris and Tyrawly. Longman, Orme and Co. London. Piggott, S. 1954. The Neolithic cultures of the British Isles. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. Verrill, L. and Tipping, R. 2010. A palynological and geoarchaeological investigation into Bronze Age farming at Belderg Beg, Co. Mayo, Ireland. Journal of Archaeological Science 37, 1214-1225. Warren, G. 2009. Belderrig: A ‘New’ Later Mesolithic and Neolithic Landscape in Northwest Ireland. pp. 143-152 in N.Finlay, S. McCartan, N. Milner and C.W. Jones (eds), From Bann Flakes to Bushmills; Papers in Honour of Professor Peter Woodman. Oxford. 116
Probed Surveys: Erris, Céide Fields and Belderg More Seamas Caulfield This draft chapter outlines the progress and results of Caulfield’s main survey projects. It requires editing and integrating with illustrations. These will include the use of maps of the Céide complex at different stages, showing the development of the project. Traditional Turf Cutting in North Mayo Hand cutting of turf for fuel varies from one region to the next due to the nature of the bogs being cut and the extent of bog available. In the case of the deep, rapidly growing Midland bogs, the raised bogs may be five or more metres in depth but confined in area. Turf cutting in these bogs involves a team of at least three people with only one person cutting, another throwing up the sods to the bank and another piling the cut sods on a special flat-bed wooden wheelbarrow and wheeling the sods away from the bank to a spreadfield where they are placed flat on the ground to dry. The top metre or more of the bog is a lightly compacted sphagnum which will not dry and condense so that even if relatively dry, easily absorbs massive amounts of water when left exposed. This metre or more of top is discarded by throwing it into the hole left by last year’s cutting. As many as twelve to fifteen ‘spits’ or ‘tops’ of turf are cut below this, very often the flooding of the boghole rather than reaching the base of the bog is what terminates the cutting. The turf becomes more compacted and therefore dries more densely as one goes downwards though the very dense turf at the base lacking in any binding fibre tends to disintegrate if dried in strong sunshine. The sods range from 10 to 12 cm in square cross-section and from 30 to 40 cm in length cut with a ‘sleán’ or turfspade with a wing at right angles to the normal cutting edge which allows the cutting of the regular square sectioned sod with one thrust and lift of the spade. The turfspade comes in both left and right forms for use by left and right cutters. To cut left-handed is to have the left hand as the lifting hand half way down the handle while the right hand provides some thrust and controls the spade. A left-handed turfspade has the wing on the right hand side of the spade so that the sod when thrown to the left of the cutter is thrown away from the wing. A right-handed turfspade has the wing on the left side for the same reason. The bank of turf cut in a deep raised bog may be up to two metres wide and may be no more than ten metres in length. In regions of extensive blanket bog such as North Mayo, bog depth can vary from a metre or less on slopes to over four metres on flat ground. Gradient rather than altitude is the controlling factor and four metres of bog can be found on flat hill tops as well as in valley bottoms. In North Mayo turf cutting is a one-man operation. The top ten to fifteen centimetres of the growing ‘scraw’ is ‘scrawed’ with the traditional general purpose spade along a bank face 80 to 90 cm wide and one hundred metres or more in length. The first ‘top’ seven to nine sods wide is thrown from the turfspade in a ‘corraí’ or continuous heap one and a half to three metres in from the bank edge. The second top is thrown onto the vacant one and a half metre strip between the bank edge and the first corraí. The third and if present a fourth top is cut and thrown into the boghole. Irrespective of the depth of the bog, no more than four tops is ever cut because of the difficulty of spreading it afterwards. In deeper blanket bog where two or more tops remain uncut, after ten to twelve years 117
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Neolithic and Bronze Age Landscapes
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Table of Contents Introduction ....
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Scientific Research associated with
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Introduction This report reviews th
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- A summary of the radiocarbon dati
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Creating Digital Archaeological Lan
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Figure 2: Data Model for NBNM GIS R
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Figure 4: example of outputs at Cé
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Rathlackan As a result of a lack of
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Radiocarbon Dating A further tranch
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RATHLACKAN Lab Number F no S. No Co
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GLENULRA ENCLOSURE Notes Cal BC (95
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Lab Code Cutting Sample Material AR
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Charcoal analysis from Neolithic an
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Results Overall charcoal 83 samples
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Glenulra Scatter 92E140 Middle Neol
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Oak and birch were recorded from Cu
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35 30 no of samples 25 20 15 10 5 0
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Area A A long length of Neolithic f
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piece was 17 years old when cut, ba
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elating to midden B2P and from five
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1% 6% Corylus 1% 14% 25% 0% 2% 4% 4
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posts burnt in situ. Rather the pos
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When the charcoal is examined throu
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at Glenulra scatter. Alder was iden
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een freely available in the area. T
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References Byrne, G., Warren, G., W
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Verrill, L. and Tipping, R. 2010. U
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Table 3 Charcoal identifications fr
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Sample Date Ctg Context Description
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Sample Date Ctg Context Description
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Sample Trench Time period Descripti
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Page 67 and 68:
Page 69 and 70:
Page 71 and 72: Sample Trench Time period Descripti
Page 79 and 80: Table 7 Wood identification details
Page 81 and 82: Table 8 Charcoal identifications fr
Page 83 and 84: Cutting Sample Date Feature Descrip
Page 89 and 90: Table 8 Sample assessment Rathlacka
Page 91 and 92: Phase F. S. Trench Deposit type Loc
Page 93 and 94: Behy-Glenulra: Céide Fields visito
Page 95 and 96: A possible midden (B2P) contained a
Page 97 and 98: Wild remains Hazelnut shell fragmen
Page 99 and 100: References Beijerinck, W. 1947. Zad
Page 101 and 102: Verrill, L. and Tipping, R. 2010. A
Page 103 and 104: Soils and Geology Graeme Warren Thi
Page 105 and 106: Figure 3: overview of geological fe
Page 107 and 108: distinctive deposits and landscape
Page 109 and 110: Figure 4: major landuse categories.
Page 111 and 112: References ?? Soil Map of West Mayo
Page 113 and 114: The first scientific paper on late
Page 115 and 116: Also in the summer of 1963, fifty k
Page 117 and 118: the earth for the bank coming from
Page 119 and 120: dates from the macrofossil remains
Page 121: New Research and Researchers Over t
Page 125 and 126: Iron probes of varying lengths had
Page 127 and 128: Céide hill twenty five years earli
Page 129 and 130: Survey on the Glenamoy - Bartnatra
Page 131 and 132: Bungurra River drains the Knocknalo
Page 133 and 134: The elevation of the tombs, all sit
Page 135 and 136: In 1936, 2 sub-rectangular cists, C
Page 137 and 138: Dooncarton Southwest slope 3.15 km
Page 139 and 140: The cross-section area occupied by
Page 141 and 142: No upper boundary was located on Kn
Page 143 and 144: The third house site, H3, on Gortme
Page 145 and 146: The 2 court tombs, Ma38 and Ma23, l
Page 147 and 148: This void is substantiated by exami
Page 149 and 150: Survey from Ballinglen to Rathfran
Page 151 and 152: Lissadrone basin. The peat cover is
Page 153 and 154: Two similar large round cairns are
Page 155 and 156: Wall Gaps Because of concealment an
Page 157 and 158: supported by an orthostat visible u
Page 159 and 160: and with different building techniq
Page 161 and 162: Survey Illustrations: Figure 1: Ove
Page 163 and 164: Figure 4: Seefin walls with associa
Page 165 and 166: Figure 7: Walls from the study area
Page 167 and 168: Figure 8: Cabintown Site A. 161
Page 169 and 170: Figure 11: Rathlackan sites H12 Fig
Page 171 and 172: Figure 15: Creevagh H5, Figure 16:
Page 173:
Figure 19: Carrowkibbock Upper H20.
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Neolithic and Bronze Age Landscapes of North Mayo: Report 2011

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