The bear bone that has pushed back the date of human presence in Ireland by 2,500 years to 10500BC

A fascinating discovery in the darkness of a cave in County Clare has forced archaeologists to rewrite the history of Ireland. A bear bone found in the cave pushes back the date of human presence in Ireland by 2,500 years - to 12,500 years ago.

The cave near Ennis in Co. Clare in which the Paleolithic bear bone was found in 1903.

"This is a hugely significant and exciting discovery," says Dr. Marion Dowd, an archaeologist at IT Sligo, who was co-discoverer with Dr. Ruth Carden of the National Museum of Ireland. "We've effectively pushed back the date of human occupation of the island of Ireland by two and a half thousand years. Until now, we knew that people had been here about 10,000 years ago, but now we've pushed that back into an earlier period - into the Paleolithic."

Dr. Marion Dowd of IT Sligo.

"This journey began in 1903 when a team of scientists, the foremost scientists in Ireland at the time, excavated a small cave, known as Alice and Gwendoline Cave, outside Ennis in County Clare. During those excavations, they recovered archaeological material, and thousands of animal bones."

"The bone that forms the centre of our project was one of those bones, and they commented on this bone in their excavation report. They remarked on the fact that it had these cut marks."

The bone is a patella, or knee bone, and belonged to an adult bear. Dr. Dowd says that the cut marks on the bone indicate someone trying to butcher the bear carcass.

"We're looking at a scenario where you have a bear and it's being butchered. They're cutting through the knee area, probably to pull out the tendons."She said that the "butcher" was likely to have been inexperienced because there were seven or eight cut marks on the bone and they were seemingly having difficulty cutting through the area.

The Paleolithic bear bone with linear cut marks.

A sample was taken from the bone and sent to Queen's University Belfast for carbon dating. The sample returned a date of 12,500 years ago. This puts it in the Paleolithic, or Old Stone Age.

"This was very exciting," said Dr. Dowd, adding that it was "completely unexpected". For the purpose of confirmation, a second sample was extracted from the bear bone and sent to Oxford University, whose radiocarbon dating laboratory "sent back exactly the same result".

Now that they knew the age of the bone, they wanted to confirm that the cut marks on the bone were contemporaneous with the bone itself, and not something that was added years, or perhaps centuries, later. Three specialists independently examined the cut marks. All three experts agreed that the marks were made with a "sharp implement" and that they had been made "on fresh bone". The bear bone was butchered soon after death.

The discovery changes the history books, and pushes back the earliest date of known occupation of Ireland to 10500BC. There have been problems with identifying remains from the Paleolithic era - primarily due to the action of glaciers during the Ice Age, which had the effect of scouring a lot of evidence away. The melt waters at the end of the Ice Age would also have washed a lot of material away.

Thousands of animal bones were found in Alice and Gwendoline Cave in County Clare in 1903.

Dr. Dowd said scientists and archaeologists had been looking for evidence of Paleolithic human activity since the 1860s.

Excitingly, there may be the prospect of a return to the cave, where some archaeological digging of the sediments there might reveal further tantalising clues to Ireland's very ancient past.

This one sample of bone rewrites the history of Ireland and adds 2,500 years to its human story.

Watch a YouTube video about this remarkable discovery:

The Tara Brooch - Ireland's finest piece of jewellery

The Tara Brooch on display in the Treasury, National Museum (Archaeology), Kildare St., Dublin.

The Tara Brooch has rightly been described as Ireland's finest piece of jewellery. It dates from the 7th century AD and represents the pinnacle of achievement by the early medieval Irish metalworkers.

However, the brooch has no known connection with either the Hill of Tara, after which it is named, or the High Kings who ruled there. It was, supposedly, found on Bettystown beach in County Meath, a mere four and a half miles (7km) from where I live here in Drogheda.

The story goes that it was found at Bettystown in 1850 by a peasant woman's children. They allegedly found it in a box which had been buried in the sand. However, there is a belief the brooch was really discovered somewhere inland and that the peasant woman's family had changed details of the story to avoid any dispute with the owner of the land where it was really found. On August 24th 1850 (and remember this was just after the Great Famine, when times were tough), the woman offered the brooch for sale to the owner of an old iron shop here in Drogheda. Can you imagine receiving such a fabulous and priceless artifact into your hands and then deeming it to be of little worth? That's what happened:

"[He] refused to purchase to light and insignificant (sic) an article; it was subsequently bought by a watchmaker in the town, who, after cleaning and examining it, proceeded to Dublin and disposed of it to us (Messrs. Waterhouse & Co., Jewellers, Dame Street), for nearly as many pounds sterling as he had given pence for it."(1)

A different story about the discovery of the Tara Brooch later emerged. Sir William Wilde (father of Oscar Wilde) had compiled a Catalogue of the Silver and Ecclesiastical Antiquities in the Collection of the Royal Irish Academy in 1862. This was not published until 1915. In it, Wilde refers to certain silver objects found "in the excavation for the harbour wall at the mouth of the river Boyne, near Drogheda, in an oak box, and along with them the brooch called that of Tara."(2)

The only thing in common with the two stories is that the brooch was found in a box and that it was found somewhere along the coast of the Drogheda area.

A view of the Tara Brooch on display at the National Museum. © Anthony Murphy

Whatever the truth about the location of its discovery, the Dame Street jeweller, George Waterhouse, was the one who renamed this most precious item the Tara Brooch, linking the find to the Irish High Kings, "fully aware that this would feed the Irish middle-class fantasy of being descended from them."(3)

And it worked. The Tara Brooch was displayed as a standout showpiece at The Great Exhibition in London in 1851 and the Paris Exposition Universelle, as well as the Dublin exhibition visited by the Queen in 1853. Prior to this, it had even been specially sent to Windsor Castle for her inspection.(4)

Around 1867, the brooch came into the collection of the Royal Irish Academy. It was sold to the RIA for the sum of £200, quite a lot of money in those days, and sold "on the express condition that it should never be allowed to leave Ireland".

The Tara Brooch is currently on display at the Treasury room of the National Museum (Archaeology) in Kildare Street, Dublin, where the public can see it for free. You are also allowed to take photographs of it - but there are conditions, so make sure to read them on the museum's website before visiting.Here is the museum's description of the Tara Brooch:

It is made of cast and gilt silver and is elaborately decorated on both faces. The front is ornamented with a series of exceptionally fine gold filigree panels depicting animal and abstract motifs that are separated by studs of glass, enamel and amber. The back is flatter than the front, and the decoration is cast. The motifs consist of scrolls and triple spirals and recall La Tène decoration of the Iron Age.
A silver chain made of plaited wire is attached to the brooch by means of a swivel attachment. This feature is formed of animal heads framing two tiny cast glass human heads.
Along with such treasures as the Ardagh Chalice and the Derrynaflan Paten, the Tara Brooch can be considered to represent the pinnacle of early medieval Irish metalworkers’ achievement. Each individual element of decoration is executed perfectly and the range of technique represented on such a small object is astounding.(5)

Just one final thought, and that is the significance of the Boyne Estuary, if that is indeed where the brooch was found. This is where the builders of Newgrange brought the stones for the monument in from the sea. This is, according to myth, the place where the Milesians landed when they came to take Ireland from the Tuatha Dé Danann. It is also reputedly the place where Saint Patrick landed when he arrived to bring Christianity here. One wonders if the brooch was not part of a haul that was either being brought into the country, or, more likely, being secreted away to be sold abroad; and, if the latter was the case, what misfortune came upon its then owner at the mouth of the Boyne. Whatever happened, we are exceedingly lucky to be able to enjoy its splendor today.

References:
(1) H.A. Wheeler, The Tara Brooch: Where Was It Found?, Journal of the County Louth Archaeological Society, Vol. 12, No. 2 (1950), pp 155-158.
(2) Ibid. 
(3) http://www.irishcentral.com/roots/the-tara-brooch-one-of-irelands-greatest-treasures-explained
(4) Ibid.
(5) http://www.museum.ie/Archaeology/Exhibitions/Current-Exhibitions/The-Treasury/Gallery-1-Iron-Age-to-12th-Century/Tara-Brooch-(1)

Mythical Ireland news bulletin May 2014

First passage-tomb discovered in the Boyne Valley for two centuries using new archaeological techniques

The first passage-tomb to be discovered in the Boyne Valley in 200 years has been identified by archaeologists using sophisticated imaging techniques.

The newly discovered mound, with circular enclosure,
shown on a colour LiDAR image. Reference: Boyne Valley
Landscapes Project. Data: Meath County Council/
Discovery Programme

Archaeological imaging and geophysics specialist Kevin Barton spoke about the discovery, made originally in 2010, at a recent Heritage Week presentation at the JFK Arboretum in County Wexford. He was giving a talk about possible new monuments discovered in LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) imaging of the Great Island area of Wexford.

The “new” passage-tomb, on the floodplain of the Boyne southwest of Newgrange, had showed up as a “blip” on LiDAR imagery of the valley, Mr. Barton said. Because of its situation in proximity to the Boyne monuments, it was considered that the feature warranted further investigation.

The newly discovered monument shown in gradiometry with
resistance overlay. The dark linear feature running from SSW-NNE
is believed to be a passage. The small dark circular area is the
mound. The outer enclosure is also faintly visible. © Davis et al

The site was given the designation “LP2” by investigating archaeologists. In the LiDAR image it appeared there was a central mound with a circular outer enclosure feature. The enclosure was “faint but identifiable” in the image.

Further work, in the form of ground-probing techniques called Magnetic Gradiometry and Resistivity was carried out, and revealed what appeared to be a weakly defined outer enclosure in addition to a distinct passage/chamber arrangement of the passage-tomb aligned towards the north-northeast.

Archaeologists became excited about the central mound, which they said “appears to show a clear passage and chamber arrangement with splayed terminals at the NNE. The central mound is clearly identifiable and measures c. 30m in diameter. This strongly suggests that the feature represents a hitherto unknown passage tomb.”

Kevin Barton demonstrating archaeological surveying
techniques at the JFK Arboretum. © Anthony Murphy.

Kevin Barton told the audience at his Co. Wexford talk that he believed it was the first passage-tomb to be discovered in the Brú na Bóinne complex in over 200 years. What makes the discovery very special is the fact that no archaeological digging took place to find it. It was discovered purely through LiDAR imaging and ground-probing techniques.

The area where the passage-tomb is located is close to the Boyne, straddling a modern hedgerow. The land has been under tillage and pasture at various times, and has probably been considerably ploughed over the years.

Commenting on the discovery, Anthony Murphy, author of Newgrange: Monument to Immortality said that it was just one of a number of exciting new features identified over the past few years in the Boyne Valley.

“This is incredible work by archaeologists using an array of new techniques. They have found a passage-tomb that has been hidden in the landscape for millennia, and they have found it without putting a single trowel into the ground.”

This is a wider LiDAR image of the Boyne Valley. The location of the new
monument is shown by the red circle. Map: Boyne Valley 
Landscapes Project. Source of data: Meath County Council/Discovery Project.

“I am particularly excited by the suggestion that the passage of this newly-discovered monument may point towards the north-northwest. If that’s the case, there are two possibilities which I’d like to see examined. One is that the passage points back up the slopes of the valley towards Newgrange. The second is that, because it points to the north-northwest, it cannot be aligned on a sunrise or moonrise, and one could propose a stellar alignment," Mr. Murphy said.

“It’s obviously far too early to say whether that’s the case. But I would definitely be interested in finding out whether there might have been an alignment to Deneb, the bright star of Cygnus, the swan constellation. The Brú na Bóinne area is linked with significant swan mythology. Indeed the owner of Newgrange, Aonghus Óg, was said to have taken the form of a swan. And the fields where this newly discovered mound is located have been the wintering ground for the whooper swans, which have been coming to Newgrange in large numbers for many decades, and possibly since the time Newgrange was built.”

But this newly-discovered monument might never be excavated. Kevin Barton said in his talk that archaeological digging is not only invasive, but destructive.

The new electronic arsenal employed by archaeologists is, however, providing the means to look under the soil without ever having to dig. And Mr. Barton said the equipment and the analysis of data were improving all the time. The new breakthrough is a testament to the exciting prospects of discovery in future of monuments that are currently hidden from view in the landscape.

Some of these new techniques have been employed at the Hill of Slane, where a mound, also surrounded by a circular enclosure, is thought by some to have originally been a passage-tomb, possibly as old as Newgrange, which was later re-fashioned by the Normans into a defensive motte.

Some new techniques will also be employed to examine the possibility that Millmount, in Drogheda, is also an ancient passage-tomb which was re-used by the Normans and later by the British who fortified the mound with a martello tower on top.

Acknowledgements: Steve Davis, Conor Brady, Kevin Barton and Will Megarry (archaeology); funded by the Heritage Council (INSTAR); Meath County Council (LiDAR imagery); the archaeologists are very grateful to the Redhouse family for access to the land.

Boyne Valley Landscapes Project: Steve Davis, William Megarry. Conor Brady, Helen Lewis, Thomas Cummins, Loreto Guinan, Jonathan Turner, Colman Gallagher, Tony Brown and Robert Meehan.

See Boyne Valley Landscapes Project Phase III Summary Report and Phase III Final Report.