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Palaeolithic Ireland
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09-11-2011 8:59pm#1
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It would be strange if Ireland was not populated at this period. Could there be specific reasons such as lingering ice, depleted resources etc.?IIRC the Mell flake is attributed to glacial movement from elsewhere. Looks Neandertal in form to me. Given human populations in the UK going back to nearly a million years, it's inconceivable to me that earlier hominids weren't here. Now some landmasses are remarkably recent when it comes to human habitation. New Zealand a classic one. No earlier than the 12th century. Ireland is too close to a major area of habitation and was joined to Europe more than once in human prehistory. Hominids made it to Crete, a sea journey out of sight of land 400,000 years ago. Ireland would be a doddle by comparison.
As Gee Bag said the glaciers scraped so much of our ancient landscape any evidence is gonna be thin on the ground. That said I'm personally convinced it's out there. Look to Scotland for encouragement. It was blasted by glaciers too, just as much as here, if not more so given it's more northerly location. Yet nearly a dozen Paleo bifaces have been found there. Here's one from the Orkney islands which is as far north on these islands as you're gonna get http://saintandrew.org.au/2011/06/26/rare-pre-ice-age-handaxe-discovered-on-orkney/
If the general pattern of the ice sheet's movement was from west to east (maybe this was only along the east coast) then most of the ancient topsoil would have ended up in the Irish Sea?Where would I be looking? Extreme southwest of Ireland. These areas were least affected by glaciation so may preserve earlier layers. Cork/Kerry even over to the south east. Walk the beaches of wexford and you do find flint/chert nodules of fairly ok quality for lithic production. They seem to come from some undersea outcrop as they don't figure in the local stone AFAIK.
I see lots of flint pebbles on the beaches of Wicklow. Presumably these were washed down from the flint fields in Antrim?That's another issue/factor with this country. Sources for lithic production. We don't have many on the flint front compared to Europe/the UK. So humans would have used other sources like quartzite as they did elsewhere. These can be less obvious to the eye. Not the classic lithic production scars of flint, so may be missed on a regular basis. I've an early Erectus hand axe in quartzite from French gravels in my collection and you'd miss it sooooo easily.
Apart from young men on beaches in Sligo, that isSo I'd be looking in these southern areas for "fossil" stream and gravel beds where these tools may have fallen. I wonder has anyone tried? I'd be very surprised if even one person had actively looked in the last 100 years.
When you say 'fossil stream' and gravel beds, do you mean glacial deposits like eskers?
They'd be hard beggars to find.
http://pb-archaeology.blogspot.com/2009_02_01_archive.html
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Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,092 Mod ✭✭✭✭
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Can't think of any TBH, unless someone out there has better info, I can't imagine paleolithic Ireland being much different to paleolithic UK.slowburner wrote: »It would be strange if Ireland was not populated at this period. Could there be specific reasons such as lingering ice, depleted resources etc.?
We need a geologistIf the general pattern of the ice sheet's movement was from west to east (maybe this was only along the east coast) then most of the ancient topsoil would have ended up in the Irish Sea?
Maybe, though the deposits around lough Neagh seem to be a bit small for so much of the stuff.I see lots of flint pebbles on the beaches of Wicklow. Presumably these were washed down from the flint fields in Antrim?Apart from young men on beaches in Sligo, that is
No, older than that. Pre or inter glacial stuff laid down in warm periods by rivers and such. Again geologist requiredWhen you say 'fossil stream' and gravel beds, do you mean glacial deposits like eskers?
They'd be hard beggars to find.
I wonder do any such deposits exist?
That's the kinda stuff alright.Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.
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Isn't that the established view I mean? I'm neither an anarchist or an antidisestablishmentarianOh really? Hmmm. Well whatever about the establishment, if people don't expect to see something, if they've been told they likely won't, they'll often simply not see it. Add in lack of training to be able to see it(especially in non flint lithics) and it's very possible things could well be missed. 0 -
In fairness, people have looked in the past and also in more recent years exactly for this. Alot of cave sites have being excavated but nothing Paleolithic so far. The Irish Mesolithic is fascinating though, so more than adequate compensation 0
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Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,092 Mod ✭✭✭✭ Join Date:Posts: 59021
True enough, sure flint is chert anyway, though usually finer and found in chalk/limestone. For cleavers and the like quartzite is also a good un. Nice and heavy. Even for smaller and finer pieces the production skill neandertals in particular could bring to bear on the material is impressive.RDM_83 again wrote: »Presumably Chert which is a bit more common within southern Ireland could have been used?
Yea that would be a worry for me too R. Sea side sites I reckon would be rare. Then again they found one in southern england going back 900,000 years so you never know. I suppose(though I'm likely well off here) in the various interglacials before the current one Ireland would have risen up just like today? So a seaside site now might have been one a couple of times before? I'd say ancient river plains the more likely options. Pre ice age gravel beds if such exist out there. They might be hard to spot, particularly with the huge amount of ice age gravels around. You'd want a keen eye, serious expertise and be looking for one. It would be like looking for slightly different hay in a big haystack.For me issues of Eustatic rise in location of sites would probably be the killer, especially if you think they may have been using sites like some of the mesolithic sites, sure the Irish sea basin could have lots of sites.
But like I said given hominids have been rocking back and forth to the UK in between the ice for close to a million years, even in colder conditions than previously thought possible, I'd be truly shocked if they never made it to here and in numbers too. Doubly so when there were times when Ireland and the UK were part of the land mass of Europe. Last year IIRC they even found a neandertal skull piece with the definitive brow ridges, dredged up in a trawlers net in the North Sea. Talk about a lucky find The stuff that even shows up on ebay from Danish trawlers is impressive.
No, sounds like an interesting title.Interesting topic though, anybody read Stephen Oppenheimers, The Origins of the BritishRejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.
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Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,092 Mod ✭✭✭✭ Join Date:Posts: 59021
Great read. Thanks. Yea the whole thing is well bogus. It also goes some way to showing how hard it is to be definitive about some paleo lithics, given some researchers were "yep defo human in origin" and others "yep defo wave action naturals". Like I said the early stuff can be hard to pin down the more primitive it is. Neandertal stuff I'd be failry confident I'd spot in a heartbeat(actually picked one up on a hike in France many moons ago), but I'd not be nearly so confident of my ability to pick up earlier erectus stuff. Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.
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I didn't read the whole article in the second linkGreat read. Thanks. Yea the whole thing is well bogus. It also goes some way to showing how hard it is to be definitive about some paleo lithics, given some researchers were "yep defo human in origin" and others "yep defo wave action naturals". Like I said the early stuff can be hard to pin down the more primitive it is. Neandertal stuff I'd be failry confident I'd spot in a heartbeat(actually picked one up on a hike in France many moons ago), but I'd not be nearly so confident of my ability to pick up earlier erectus stuff.
was it confirmed that the Rosses point finds were bogus? 0 -
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Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,092 Mod ✭✭✭✭ Join Date:Posts: 59021
Interesting SB. It's southerly enough anyway to maybe have avoided much of the ravages of the last ice age. Mammoth eh? :eek: Never heard of them being found here. That's well interesting, though if it's been "worked out" chances are the good stuff is long gone.
Though just maybe there are unworked deposits however small that might yield some clues.
I reckon to narrow the focus more get a hold of some scary eyed geologists and ply them with strong drink, to see if they can pin down cave systems/areas that were around pre ice age that by benefit of their underground status they'd escape the ice scraping. Then archaeologists could have a look. They might look like collapsed sink holes now, but back then... Like Gee bag(I love that) said "[caves are] probably the best bet for finding anything". Too often it can be a case of two disciplines not talking enough with each other. I'd be very surprised to find no Paleo deposits of some nature here. They might not be evidence bearing of course(and given how rare pre modern folks were in the landscape...), but completely missing?
I'm 99% convinced pre modern folks were here. If they got into the UK and as far north as Scotland and were doing so for nearly a million years, they had to be here at at least one point. People spread quickly. I mean look at us. One of the earliest modern humans in Europe have been found in the UK. We just need to get lucky.
Keep an eye out for non chert/flint lithics for a start. Then again really early stuff even in flint needs to get your eye in. It's very opportunistic type lithic reduction at times. Sure the "handaxes"(I prefer bifaces though even that can be a fudge) are the stars of the show, but they can vary a lot. Clactonian stuff can look very haphazard. I'd personally reckon the later Mousterian/Neandertal/Levallios stuff is about the easiest to spot. To my eye it's quite consistent and looks more "designed"*, even compared to modern human meso stuff. You'd need to give me electric shocks while flashing images of micro blade tech for a month before I'd spot one of them. So the fact that none have been found so far in Ireland, given they are so obvious isn't a good sign
*Though I'd personally contend the mousterian Levallois process isn't nearly as planned(to our minds) nor cut and dried as most experts seem to think. The usual notion that there is a plan to reduce a core to specifically get a Levallois point or blade to me is well dodgy. I say they were way more practical than that. very very few of the cores I've seen(or have) look like the wiki "perfect" examples and the various types of reduction described seem well daft to me. I'd even go so far as to say the Levallois technique might even be more efficient and less wasteful and gets more useful tools out of a lump of flint than some later techniques. Done well in the hands of a master more of the debitage is useful. These guys were very frugal and focused IMHO. The notion that some bloke or gal is gonna reduce a big lump of good flint to only produce a spearpoint or a blade seems very daft. I've a couple of examples where a "debitage" piece is then looked at and the guy or gal seemed to think "oh hang on that could be useful if I did this...". Having tried the technique(hamfistedly) way back in the day, you do notice the "waste" flakes you're striking are anything but. I say bloke or gal, because it seems the gender labour division was our innovation. Before us both genders hunted etc, so IMHO a gansy load(tm) of those tools in museums were just as likely to have been crafted by a female hand.
If I had the access to decent flint I have to say I'd like to practice the technique again. It seems very few experimental archaeologists and even ardent knappers will go near it.Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.
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Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,092 Mod ✭✭✭✭ Join Date:Posts: 59021
Wow, the illustrations of his bifaces on the first plate do look very paleo to me. Put another way if I was traipsing across a field in Spain or France and saw similar I'd assume Mousterian in that context anyway. That said just because a technique is used in the past and new techniques come along, it doesn't mean the old techniques don't continue or aren't sometimes revisited. The bronze age happened and we ere still using flint tools, ditto for the iron age. Plus I know jack about meso and neo fllint techniques beyond some obvious differences. Do bifaces like that show up in mesolithic and neolithic sites? Interesting one for me was the use of basalt in some examples.
It doesn't always indicate what type of human either. Sometimes the stones don't match the bones. EG the Mousterian of North Africa and the ME was made by modern humans and with the exception of tanged spearpoints looks just like a Neandertal toolkit.
As his dissertation progresses I have more doubts. The second plate for example don't look much like mousterian to me at all. They're not Levallois thats for sure judging by the scars and overall shape and it's a technique you really can't mistake for others.
The next plate some of the scrapers/knives could be mistaken for Mousterian if found in that context alright, but again a scraper is gonna tend to look like a scraper who ever makes it.
Very interesting find though SB. Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.
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