Ancient Ireland Flashcards
Mesolithic Stone Age period
8,000-3500 BC
Nomadic
To regularly move from place to place
How were Mesolithic people buried?
They were cremated (burned) and buried with axes and other valuable items known as grave goods.
Neolithic period
Between 3,500-4,000 BC
New settlers skills
Farming, bread making, tomb building and pottery making.
Major Neolithic sites
Céide fields, Mayo. Lough Gur, Limerick and Boyne Valley, Meath.
Life of Neolithic the farmer
The land was ploughed with stone mattocks and ploughs. The first farmers grew crops like wheat and barley and domesticated animals like sheep and pigs.
They hunted and gathered, like the Mesolithic people, but it was no longer their main source of food.
What were pots made from and used for during the Neolithic times?
local clay, they were used to store food, tools or the ashes of the dead.
Neolithic houses
Houses were more permanent than the Mesolithic houses.
Their houses had poles driven into the ground, which left post holes, or had walls of wattle and daub, the roof was thatched with straw or rushes.
Wattle and daub
Wooden sticks, woven together like a basket and covered with a mixture of mud, dung, sad and straw.
Megalith
Huge stone
Passage graves
Hugh mounds built over a central passage, which led to a chamber for the dead.
Court cairns
These had an open space (court) at the front and a chamber at the front and a chamber originally covered by a mound of stones (cairn)
Portal dolmens
Two or more standing stones and a huge capstone resting across the top with the remains placed inside
Bronze Age in Ireland period
2,000 BC
Why did they use bronze to make tools and weapons?
It was stronger than stone, but was also much easier to shape.
How was bronze made?
By the process of smelting copper and tin, combining them and pouring them into moulds to set.
Smelting
Melting metal at a high temperature to separate it from the ore.
What did smiths make from bronze and gold?
Bronze pots and cauldrons for cookings, horns for music, jewellery in gold and bronze, like bracelets, armlets, earrings, necklaces.
Quern
Used to grind corn into flower for bread.
Fulacht fiadh
A stone lined pit which was filled with water. Stones were heated in a fire and lowered into the water to make it boil. The meat was wrapped in straw and left boiling until ready to eat.
Houses in the bronze age
Bigger, circular, made from wattle and daub, had thatched roofs, and other smaller buildings were enclosed behind timber fences, these may have been to defend the people from attacks, keep their animals safe at night, or both.
Burials during the Bronze Age
The body was buried in a crouched or foetal position with its grave goods, they were buried in cist graves, these were stone lined graves in the ground.
Iron Age in Ireland period
500-300 BC
