Because of the scattered nature of their food supply hunter-gatherer groups tended to be small, but the more reliable food supply that came with the introduction of farming encouraged larger, more permanent settlements.
Before they could build their farms the Neolithic farmers had to clear forest with stone axes or by burning it. In time, however, erosion and overgrazing caused the new farmland to stagnate, acidify and eventually evolve into peat bogs.
To clear the forests the Neolithics used axes made from porcellanite, a rock harder than the flint used by Mesolithics, mined at a quarry at the foot of Tievebulliagh in County Antrim, Ulster. Axe heads made from porcellanite mined at this quarry have been found across both Ireland and Britain.
One of the earliest Neolithic dwellings to be found was a rectangular house (6.5m x 6m) at Ballynagilly (3800-3600 BC), County Tyrone, Ulster, whose walls were formed by upright radially split oak planks.
By the middle Neolithic along the shores of Lough Gur, a lake in County Limerick, Munster, rectangular and circular houses (3500-2500 BC) were both in use. These houses consisted of double rows of wooden posts driven into the ground, supporting a hipped roof and screens made from wattle (woven twigs) and daub (dung, clay or straw).
Céide Fields (3500-3000 BC), County Mayo, Connacht, contains the oldest known field system in the world, covering some four square miles (1000 hectares), consisting of small fields separated from one another by dry-stone walls. Roughly once for every strip of land are postholes and hearths remaining from small circular huts.
The earliest known Neolithic pottery in Ireland was found on the flat hilltop of Lyles Hill (3950-3800 BC), County Antrim, Ulster. It is called Carinated Bowl pottery after the shape of the vessel, but having also been found at Grimston in northern Britain it is also known as Grimston-Lyles Hill ware. The pottery bowls were hand-built by winding coils of clay in a circle to form the sides of the bowl, smoothing them, letting them dry and then firing them over an open fire.
• Neolithic Monuments
One of the most distinctive aspects of the Neolithic was the introduction of the megaliths, primarily used as tombs of which there are four main types – portal dolmens, court, passage and wedge.
Portal dolmens consist of a straight sided chamber with the entrance marked by tall portal stones bridged by capstone supported at the rear by a backstone. Court tombs have an east-facing entrance court which leads into chambers roofed on the inside by corbels (projections). Passage tombs consist of a long, narrow passage leading from outside to a central chamber or chambers. Wedge tombs have a long narrow chamber decreasing in height towards the back, which gives them their name, and having no separate entrance.
The capstone of the Browne’s Hill dolmen (3300-2900 BC) in County Carlow, Leinster, weighs about 100 metric tons, and is reputed to be the heaviest in Europe. The Poulnabrone dolmen (4200-2900 BC), located in the Burren, County Clare, Munster, is unusually large. Found buried underneath it were the remains of about 33 humans (3800-3200 BC).
Creevykeel (3000 BC), County Sligo, Connacht, is one of the most impressive court tombs in Ireland. Located within a long, tapering regular trapezoid shaped cairn (layer of stones), its entrance is via the wider parallel side and leads to an oval-shaped court positioned between two burial chambers.
Bru na Boinne (Boyne valley tombs), Co. Meath, Leinster, east of the River Boyne, contains the passage tombs of Newgrange (3200-2900 BC), Knowth (3200-2900 BC) and Dowth (2500-2000 BC). They are surrounded by smaller tombs and Late Neolithic, Copper Age and Early Bronze Age enclosures constructed from stone, timber and earth.
Newgrange is a large mound approximately eighty metres in diameter covering a single tomb consisting of a nineteen-metre-long passage leading to the main chamber (covered by a corbelled roof) with three recesses, each of which contained remains of the dead. Above the entrance there is an opening through which the Sun at the winter solstice shines along the passage and illuminates the burial chamber at the far end.
The Late Neolithic coincided with the beginning of the age of the wedge tombs. Carrowcrom wedge tomb (2500-2000 BC), County Mayo, Connacht, is 6 metres long, 5 metres wide and 1.4 metres tall, with an orthostats (upright stone) on both sides, and is covered by its original U-shaped cairn.
Drombeg stone circle (1100-800 BC), County Cork, Munster, consists of seventeen stones set in a circle 9.3 metres in diameter. Included in this, and some other stone circles, is a recumbent, a large monolith lying on its side which is thought to be designed for ritualistic astronomical purposes.
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