Chapter 2 - Ancient Ireland Flashcards
What is the oldest settlement in ireland?
Mount Sandel, Co. Derry
What are postholes?
Foundations of huts built with upright posts
What is flint?
Small pieces of flint - bones of bird and fish
What was the hearth?
Fireplace
Where did the first settlers come from?
Scotland or whales
What did the first settlers arrive to ireland in?
Dugout canoes - small tub like boats made from animal skin and a light wooden frame
What are saplings?
Young trees which built a frame for the early irish settlers circular huts
What was the midden?
A heap of kitchen waste next to the hut
What was a microlit?
Tools made from stones and flint e.g. Axes, spears, arrows
What were early irish settlers clothes made from?
Animal skin
What were scrapers?
Flat stones that cleaned animal skin - skins were then stitched together with bone needles
How did hunter gatherers get food?
- hunted birds , wild boar , fish
- gathered nuts and berries
What does nomadic mean?
They moved from place to place in search of a food supply
When did the neolithic farmers arrive in ireland?
-about 4000BC from Britain and mainland europe
What did the first farmers believe about death?
- afterlife
- death was marked by megaliths (tombs)
What were the three main types of tombs?
- dolmen
- court cairn
- passage grave
What is a dolmen?
- consists of three standing stones and a huge capstone on top
- grave goods such as food, pottery, jewellery placed alongside the remains
- mound of earth covered the dolmens (today eroded away)
What is a court cairn?
Burial chamber with a small entrance are or court
-built from standing stones covered in earth
What is a passage grave?
- most impressive megalithic tombs in Ireland
- built for rich important people
- builders were good engineers and had a good understanding of astronomy
- Newgrange, Co. Meath, winter solstice light shines through the roof box marks
When did the Bronze Age begin?
2000BC
What is bronze?
A mixture of tin and copper
How is bronze used?
Beaten, melted, poured into weapons and goods
What is a lunalae?
A bronze age gold necklace
What were the bronze age burial tombs?
- cist graves
- wedge tombs
What is a cist grave?
A shallow pit lined with slabs covered by a large flat stone
What is a wedge tomb?
A tomb built above the ground from stone slabs covered in earth
What is a stone circle?
- large upright stones forming a circle
- place of worship/ calendar for farmers
- dug hole in the ground
- lined with flat stones or pieces of wood
- poured water into the hole and boiled it by dropping in large stones that had been heated in a fire
What is fulachta fiadh?
What was wattle and daub?
Interwoven sticks plastered together with mud and straw to make a rectangular house
What was a quern?
Used to grind grain, wheat and barley
What were mattocks and wooden ploughs?
Farming tools used to turn the soil
