1. 4 The Neolithic Period (New Stone Age)
Our Roots in Ancient Civilisation 1: Ancient Ireland
4 The Neolithic Period (New Stone Age)
WHAT YOU WILL LEARN
At the end of this chapter you should understand ...
How the arrival of farming changed Ireland.
The life and work of the first farmers and their burial customs.

2. How do we know about the first farmers in Ireland?
Archaeological excavations
What can
pollen analysis and
carbon dating
tell us about Neolithic farmers?
Neolithic sites
Lough Gur, Co. Limerick
The Boyne Valley, Co. Meath
Céide Fields, Co. Mayo
Old Stone Age
Middle Stone Age (Mesolithic)
New Stone Age (Neolithic)
No evidence of people living in Ireland
8000 BC
First people in Ireland
4000 BC
First farmers in Ireland

3. Houses and work
How did Bronze age people live and work?

4. Houses
What was wattle and daub?

5. Work
Dairying and grain-growing
What work did farmers do?

6. Food Wheat, barley – bread, porridge Pigs Fishing, hunting, gathering
How was the saddle stone used?

7. Tools and weapons From where did these axes come?
Uses of tools and weapons
Axes
Cutting down trees, building houses and boats, fighting
Bows and arrows, spears
Hunting and fighting
Wooden and stone ploughs
Tilling the ground
Mattocks and spades
Scrapers
Cleaning skins
Bone or antler needles
Stitching
From where did these axes come?

8. Pottery Uses of pottery Cooking Storing food Burials
How was pottery made?

9. What are ‘megalithic tombs’?
Burial Customs
What are ‘megalithic tombs’?
‘great’
‘stone’
Court cairns
Portal dolmens
Passage tombs

10. How were megalithic tombs built?
Burial Customs 2 3 1 4
How were megalithic tombs built?

11. Court Cairns What are … ? Court Cairn Burial chamber Cremation
Corbelled roof
Creevykeel court cairn, Co. Sligo

12. What is the capstone/dolmen? What are the portals?
Portal Dolmens
What is the capstone/dolmen? What are the portals?

13. Passage Tombs
What is the roof box?

14. Passage Tombs
What happens on 21 December at Newgrange?

15. Newgrange is older than other famous ancient sites
Passage Tombs
What does Newgrange tell us about the people who built it?
They were well organised.
They were great builders.
They had a religion and believed in the afterlife.
They were astronomers and mathematicians.
They had many skilled craftsmen.
Newgrange
Pyramids in Egypt
Stonehenge in England
3200 BC
2600 BC
2400 Bc
Newgrange is older than other famous ancient sites

16. FOCUS TASK STONE AGE IRELAND Summarise
Draw up a table in a page of your copybook with the headings ‘Mesolithic Period’ and ‘Neolithic Period’. Fill in the information in short note form opposite each of the categories.
STONE AGE IRELAND
Mesolithic Period
Neolithic Period
Houses
Food & Family
Tools & Weapons
Art & Craft
Burial customs