Lough Boora

markesmith

Lough Boora is quite close to where I'm from, and I've visited a few times.

It strikes me as strange that it was occupied in the Mesolithic era - it's slap bang in the centre of Ireland, and a fair enough distance from the Shannon as well.

Lack of flints drove them to use the inferior chert as a substitute, which would have been a challenge in itself...

What are your thoughts? What would have driven hunter-gatherers to Biffoland (as a Biffo, I can call it that )?

robp

markesmith wrote: »

Lough Boora is quite close to where I'm from, and I've visited a few times.

It strikes me as strange that it was occupied in the Mesolithic era - it's slap bang in the centre of Ireland, and a fair enough distance from the Shannon as well.

Lack of flints drove them to use the inferior chert as a substitute, which would have been a challenge in itself...

What are your thoughts? What would have driven hunter-gatherers to Biffoland (as a Biffo, I can call it that )?

Perhaps it is good to ask why not? the flora and fauna were different and far less diverse then the rest of Europe but there was fish to catch, birds to trap and plants to gather.

markesmith

It just seems quite out of the way, and contrary to what we've been told about the Mesos preferring the coast.

I mean, Boora of all places? How did they even find it? Pretty sure the Athlone dual carriageway wasn't fully completed back then!

robp

markesmith wrote: »

It just seems quite out of the way, and contrary to what we've been told about the Mesos preferring the coast.

I mean, Boora of all places? How did they even find it? Pretty sure the Athlone dual carriageway wasn't fully completed back then!

People debate what mammals existed in the period in Ireland but many plant, fish and birds are certainly known to be present. The way I envisage the Mesolithic Midlands is an enormous expanse of very shallow lakes teaming with wildfowl and edible plants, fringed with networks of reedbed, carrs and dryer woodland with birds like woodcock and capercaillie and energetic stables like the hazelnut. These woodland in turn were penetrable as they were pierced by both large navigable rivers that supplied eel, trout and salmon and the dry forested eskers.

markesmith

Do you think they moved south from the Sandel area? Are there regional similarities?

pueblo

Interesting question, not one I can shed any light on.

I am very interested in their use of chert. Would anyone know where it would be possible to see (preferably online) some examples of the chert tools produced at Lough Boora?

markesmith

Probably not a million miles different from the Portland chert:

Gently does it Bacchus

pueblo wrote: »

Interesting question, not one I can shed any light on.

I am very interested in their use of chert. Would anyone know where it would be possible to see (preferably online) some examples of the chert tools produced at Lough Boora?

I've seen a couple of the Lough Boora chert microliths on display in the National Museum and the chert itself looks remarkably like the chert which was being sourced around Lough Derravaragh,in Co.Westmeath.So if the artefacts weren't manufactured from locally sourced cherts,then it's most likely that's where those cherts were coming from.I've checked online for images of both Derravaragh chert and those in the NMI,but I'm afraid can't find anything for you!You might have better luck yourself?

pueblo

Gently does it Bacchus wrote: »

I've seen a couple of the Lough Boora chert microliths on display in the National Museum and the chert itself looks remarkably like the chert which was being sourced around Lough Derravaragh,in Co.Westmeath.So if the artefacts weren't manufactured from locally sourced cherts,then it's most likely that's where those cherts were coming from.I've checked online for images of both Derravaragh chert and those in the NMI,but I'm afraid can't find anything for you!You might have better luck yourself?

Thanks for that Gently does it Bacchus, will have to do a bit more digging!

Markesmith, great photo thanks, interestingly it looks very like a piece I found in Kilkenny last year, am still waiting for someone to assess it. It seems to me like it might have been a point.

markesmith

I'm very new to all this, but that does look like it's been worked. Have there been any Mesolithic/Neolithic finds around the area you found it?

pueblo

markesmith wrote: »

I'm very new to all this, but that does look like it's been worked. Have there been any Mesolithic/Neolithic finds around the area you found it?

Yes, I have also found a number of worked flints in the same area, these have been assessed as late mesolithic.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=80694204

Tordelback

Graema Warren, Aimee Little and Michael Stanley have a good bief summary of how the Mesolithic might work in the midlands in their downloadable article on a flint scatter in Offaly.

The key thing to understand about the Irish Mesolithic, and what makes it disticnt from that of much of northern Europe, is the complete lack of large mammals - that's what makes the forests unattractive. Strategies are all about water- and wetlands based resources, so the fish, birds and plants surrounding inland lakes, rivers and marshlands provide a viable alternative to the coast, while the drier forested interior and bare uplands probably aren't that tempting. So you could expect to see populations moving along the river corridors to where rivers meet lakes and wetlands, to maximise the different habitats in the surrounding area. Also bear in mind that despit being a tiny population, Mesolithic groups are mobile, and the period lasted for 5 or 6000 years, so there's plenty of time for them to get everywhere that might be attractive to them.

Fries-With-That

I couldn't get the link to work.

ezra_pound

markesmith wrote: »

It just seems quite out of the way, and contrary to what we've been told about the Mesos preferring the coast.

I mean, Boora of all places? How did they even find it? Pretty sure the Athlone dual carriageway wasn't fully completed back then!

The Dublin to galway m6/m4 was completed and operational in the form of the eiscear riada.

Tordelback

Fries-With-That wrote: »

I couldn't get the link to work.

That's 'cos I'm a ham-fisted eejit, apologies. Here you go.