chapple, r. m. 2014 review - rewriting the (pre)history of ulster- a synthesis of developer led...

8/10/2019 Chapple, R. M. 2014 Review - Rewriting the (Pre)History of Ulster- A Synthesis of Developer Led Excavation, Mon

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Review | Rewriting the (Pre) history of Ulster: A synthesis of developer ledexcavation, monuments and earthworks 4300 to 1900 BC | Dr Rowan

McLaughlin

Originally posted online on 25 June 2014 at rmchapple.blogspot.com

(http://rmchapple.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/review-rewriting-pre-history-of-ulster.html)

On Friday the 6th of June 2014, I wandered along to the Pat Collins Reading Room atWaterman House, Hill St., Belfast to listen to the magnificent Dr Rowan McLaughlin speakabout prehistory in Ulster. Specifically, he was intent on tackling the impact that data fromexcavations in the last decade-and-a-half have had on our understanding of prehistory inUlster and Ireland generally. The MRB have been running a pretty excellent lecture series overthe last while and have a full schedule of speakers lined up until the end of 2014 (here). Ivenot been to any of these before, but I felt that I wanted to make a special effort for this speaker.

Many years ago Rowan and I used to work together in the commercial field archaeology sector.While hed often be relatively quiet in the site hut, he was certainly worth listening to once hestarted to speak. If he was giving a lecture, it would most likely be well worth the attentionpaid. Ive not seen him in a few years and it was lovely to catch up in the few minutes beforethe lecture kicked off. I was, however, rather discomfited when one of his first remarks to mewas: are you going to write this up for your blog? Staying my hand from reaching for mynotepad and pencil, I attempted to appear non-committal as I asked would you like me to?He appeared to think about it for a moment and said well yes. Everything hinged on thatyes and the post below is my attempt to convey Rowans research in a clear an intelligiblemanner. If Ive misunderstood or erred in any way from the original delivery, I apologise toboth the lecturer and you the reader.

An image of Saturn from the Hubble telescope (Source)

Rowan did his PhD on dental microwear analysis and has worked at Queens University Belfastas part of the INSTAR Cultivating Societiesproject. He began with the deceptively simplestatement that he wanted to talk about prehistory and how we go about turning all the datagenerated through the excavation of archaeological sites and the pattern of sites in the

landscape into knowledge about past societies. Without any written records from these times,archaeology is the only means of enquiry we have. With this in mind, it did seem a little odd
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when his first choice of image was the planet Saturn. As a slightly nervous ripple of laughterfrom the audience subsided, he explained that the planet had absolutely nothing to do withIrish prehistory, but that it does neatly illustrate some ideas about how information aboutdistant things is acquired and how that data is transformed into knowledge. Although hestarted with a recent, detailed image of Saturn taken from theHubble Space Telescope,henoted that while the ancient Greeks knew about the existence of various planets in our solarsystem, they understood them solely as star-like objects that shifted position and wanderedin relation to the other stars. In 1610, whenGalileo Galileipointed his telescope at the nightsky to observe Saturn he was unsure of what he saw and was unable to rationalise andcomprehend its rings. The planets he knew Earth, the Moon, Jupiter etc. did not have ringsaround them, so nothing in his experience could have prepared him for what he was observing.He incorrectly identified the rings as close-orbiting moons. To make the matter more complex,the plane of the rings changes, so when Galileo examined Saturn a year later, the moonsappeared to have disappeared and then reappeared sometime later. Galileo, unable tocomprehend what he saw, described it as a mysterious planet that appeared to grow and shrinkover time. In 1655, Huygens came along with a slightly better telescope and more systematicanalysis of the heavens. He was able to determine that Saturn does appear to be surroundedby ring-like material. These advances were again built on by Cassini in 1676 again with aslightly better telescope was able to confirm the existence of the rings and even map outvarious features of those rings, including what is now termed the Cassini Divisionbetweenthe inner and outer bands (have a lookherefor a good run down on the subject). McLaughlinspoint here is that with better resolution when we have better instruments to measure theseremote things we discover more information, and produce more date, and that this becomesever more refined and better resolved. There comes a point along this process, where enoughinformation has been accrued to allow you the opportunity to understand the reality of thesituation. He points out that, given the relatively modest increases in telescope quality,Galileo couldhave understood the rings of Saturn had he the correct preconceived notion asto what he was looking at. As McLaughlin says: so it is with planetary astronomy, and so it iswith archaeology. We cannot directly view the past in the same way as the naked eye cannot

see surface details on distant worlds. But through archaeological research and study especially of chronological data you can make observations of this distant time. At this pointMcLaughlin provided a brief primer on radiocarbon dating and calibration. I dont propose torepeat it verbatim here, but instead will direct the interested reader to some of my ownwritings on the topic (which, in any event, were heavily influenced by numerous conversationsand correspondence with Rowan:here|here|here|here|here). To illustrate the gulf betweenthe precision that may be gained from radiocarbon dating and the archaeological record itself,McLaughlin put up a slide with a calibrated radiocarbon date on one side and an image of apartially-excavated Bronze Age cist grave on the other. He explained that the individualpictured died and was buried. No doubt, they were mourned and seen as a loss to theircommunity. In all likelihood, this happened within a relatively short period more than days,but certainly within the scale of weeks, months and a small number of years. And slowly,

slowly, the evidence and memory of that person began to fade away. When we come toradiocarbon date this individual, however, the best we can say is that this individual lived anddied (in this particular instance) between 2100 and 1900 cal BC. His argument here is that thisis pretty good if you know nothing about Irish prehistory. On the other hand, its very bad ifyou want to put what happened in the past into precisely the right order, so that anunderstanding is gained of how societies changed over time.
http://hubblesite.org/http://hubblesite.org/http://hubblesite.org/http://youtu.be/lDxv9hSKdY4?t=26shttp://youtu.be/lDxv9hSKdY4?t=26shttp://youtu.be/lDxv9hSKdY4?t=26shttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galileihttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galileihttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galileihttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassini_Division#Cassini_Divisionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassini_Division#Cassini_Divisionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassini_Division#Cassini_Divisionhttp://www.solarviews.com/eng/saturnbg.htmhttp://www.solarviews.com/eng/saturnbg.htmhttp://www.solarviews.com/eng/saturnbg.htmhttps://www.academia.edu/411608/Just_and_expensive_numberhttps://www.academia.edu/411608/Just_and_expensive_numberhttps://www.academia.edu/411608/Just_and_expensive_numberhttps://www.academia.edu/1881691/Radiocarbon_Dating_theoretical_concepts_and_practical_applications_all_you_ever_wanted_to_know_about_14C_but_were_afraid_to_ask_https://www.academia.edu/1881691/Radiocarbon_Dating_theoretical_concepts_and_practical_applications_all_you_ever_wanted_to_know_about_14C_but_were_afraid_to_ask_https://www.academia.edu/1881691/Radiocarbon_Dating_theoretical_concepts_and_practical_applications_all_you_ever_wanted_to_know_about_14C_but_were_afraid_to_ask_https://www.academia.edu/4551438/Chapple_R._M._2013_Radiocarbon_dating_theoretical_concepts_and_practical_applications_all_you_ever_wanted_to_know_about_14C_but_were_afraid_to_ask_https://www.academia.edu/4551438/Chapple_R._M._2013_Radiocarbon_dating_theoretical_concepts_and_practical_applications_all_you_ever_wanted_to_know_about_14C_but_were_afraid_to_ask_https://www.academia.edu/4551438/Chapple_R._M._2013_Radiocarbon_dating_theoretical_concepts_and_practical_applications_all_you_ever_wanted_to_know_about_14C_but_were_afraid_to_ask_https://www.academia.edu/411605/The_absolute_dating_of_archaeological_excavations_in_Ulster_carried_out_by_Northern_Archaeological_Consultancy_Ltd._1998-2007https://www.academia.edu/411605/The_absolute_dating_of_archaeological_excavations_in_Ulster_carried_out_by_Northern_Archaeological_Consultancy_Ltd._1998-2007https://www.academia.edu/411605/The_absolute_dating_of_archaeological_excavations_in_Ulster_carried_out_by_Northern_Archaeological_Consultancy_Ltd._1998-2007https://www.academia.edu/4619601/Chapple_R._M._2013_Run_a_carbon-black_test_on_my_jaw_Catalogue_of_radiocarbon_determinations_and_dendrochronology_dates_September_2013_Update._Blogspot_Posthttps://www.academia.edu/4619601/Chapple_R._M._2013_Run_a_carbon-black_test_on_my_jaw_Catalogue_of_radiocarbon_determinations_and_dendrochronology_dates_September_2013_Update._Blogspot_Posthttps://www.academia.edu/4619601/Chapple_R._M._2013_Run_a_carbon-black_test_on_my_jaw_Catalogue_of_radiocarbon_determinations_and_dendrochronology_dates_September_2013_Update._Blogspot_Posthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cisthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cisthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cisthttps://www.academia.edu/4619601/Chapple_R._M._2013_Run_a_carbon-black_test_on_my_jaw_Catalogue_of_radiocarbon_determinations_and_dendrochronology_dates_September_2013_Update._Blogspot_Posthttps://www.academia.edu/411605/The_absolute_dating_of_archaeological_excavations_in_Ulster_carried_out_by_Northern_Archaeological_Consultancy_Ltd._1998-2007https://www.academia.edu/4551438/Chapple_R._M._2013_Radiocarbon_dating_theoretical_concepts_and_practical_applications_all_you_ever_wanted_to_know_about_14C_but_were_afraid_to_ask_https://www.academia.edu/1881691/Radiocarbon_Dating_theoretical_concepts_and_practical_applications_all_you_ever_wanted_to_know_about_14C_but_were_afraid_to_ask_https://www.academia.edu/411608/Just_and_expensive_numberhttp://www.solarviews.com/eng/saturnbg.htmhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassini_Division#Cassini_Divisionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galileihttp://youtu.be/lDxv9hSKdY4?t=26shttp://hubblesite.org/


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Saturn as visualised by Galileo (top),Huygens (middle),

and Cassini (bottom)

Over the last decade-and-a-half or so has seen a vast increase in the volume of archaeological

data that has been produced. Much of this is the result of economic circumstances, wheredevelopment-led excavations have been carried out in advance of construction. Many of thesewere carried out during the Celtic Tiger years, in advance of major infrastructural works suchas roads, pipelines, quarries, and residential developments. In a perfect world, the excavationsget written up and get stored in archives as grey literature ... some even get published.McLaughlin estimates that over the last ten years alone some one million pages of new datafor the island of Ireland have been written down. Rowans approach to the data mountain hasbeen centred on extracting an understanding of chronology from this mass of data, a task hedescribes as the golden cord to lead out of the labyrinth. An examination of all the availableradiocarbon dates for Irish prehistory that were available in around 2001, shows that therewere 1396 known from both published and grey literature sources. Plotting all of these outgives an indication of what prehistory is like at this point. As may be expected, there are

relatively few sites dating to the earliest periods and more sites from more recent times and aslow but gradual increase in between. This has led to a view of the prehistory of Ireland wherethere was an initial colonisation during the Mesolithic (c.10k cal BP) and that this was arelatively stable hunter-gatherer way of life until the introduction of agriculture (c.6k cal BP).After this point we see a population explosion that goes hand in hand with increasing socialand religious complexities. From this point on we can witness communities evolving andadapting these beliefs and practices, until it reaches its final developed flourishing ofcivilization in more recent times. As he says: The problem with that view is that it is entirelywrong. Its not what the archaeological data actually indicate. He sees that this discovery hasbeen the big achievement of development led/commercial archaeology in Ireland since themillennium. He then turned to another histogram of 4928 dates from prehistoric Ireland thathave become available in the time since 2001.Instead of a gradual increase, there are peaks

and troughs in activity. At some times it appears that there were significant episodes of large-scale archaeological deposition, and this contrasts with periods of seemingly little activity. To
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2qU4qrpJCmw/U6hlBQ503UI/AAAAAAAAH4M/bz3UGnlaV_A/s1600/Saturn+by+3.jpghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_literaturehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_literaturehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_literaturehttp://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2qU4qrpJCmw/U6hlBQ503UI/AAAAAAAAH4M/bz3UGnlaV_A/s1600/Saturn+by+3.jpghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_literature


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understand the reality of what were seeing here, there are a number of ideas that must be keptin mind. Firstly, all the dates must be calibrated as we cannot directly compare thisarchaeological data with environmental evidence from various regions. The other issue is thedegree of bias in how these data points were collected. Obviously, the first bias is whereexcavations take place either dictated by individuals research interests, or wheredevelopment is planned. Further biases exist in the systematic approach that archaeologistsuse in the collection of this data. For example, there are certain types of features that are morelikely to be dated over others what McLaughlin describes as features that are more juicylooking and, thus, more likely to be dated. Indeed, certain types of sites are almost completelyignored and this is an ongoing issue.

Creggandevesky court tomb, County Tyrone Ken Willaims/ShadowsandStone.com (Source)

The Neolithic is an enduring focus of world prehistory. It is the period of human existencewhere we abandoned the hunter-gatherer approach and took on to a greater or lesser extentagriculture, along with various forms of religious beliefs and structures of social organisationthat led to this proliferation of archaeological remains. He showed a slideof Creggandevesky court tomb in County Tyrone, arguably one of the best examples of aNeolithic monument in Ireland. During the Neolithic there is evidence for a significantnumber of these sites being constructed across the northern half of Ireland. At the same time,other forms of megalithic tomb were being constructed, including Portal Tombs(e.g.Legananny,Co. Down) and at least two of the earliest Passage tombs were constructedduring the Early Neolithic (Carrowmore,Co. Sligo andBaltinglass,Co. Wicklow). However,the real dividend of all the development-led excavation over the last couple of decades hasbeen the proliferation of newly discovered settlement sites from this period. Prehistoricsettlement has, until recently, been difficult to find, leaving our understanding of prehistoriclives and societies incomplete. For McLaughlin, though he does admit to being biased, thesingle most important question in Irish archaeology is currently: when did the Neolithicperiod start? The orthodox date thats found in most of the text books and on theinformational signage at the sites is c. 4000 BC. McLaughlin suggests that one factor in itsadoption is that its a nice round number thats easy to remember but, however you wish toview it, its just not the correct date! Instead he points to evidence such as the first domesticatesarriving inFerriters Cove,County Kerry, at 4300 cal BC. Confusingly, there are at least threeor four Mesolithic sites with securely dated contexts that show that this lifestyle was still extantat 3900 cal BC. Thus, we appear to have a 400 year period where we have both Neolithic andMesolithic economies running in parallel. Turning to the court tombs, such as Creggandevesky

mentioned above, McLaughlin notes that until recently their chronology has been somewhatelusive. However, following a dating programme directed by Rick Schulting (and
http://www.shadowsandstone.com/Ancient-Ireland/Court-Tombs/Creggandevesky-Court-Tomb-Co/1932817_WTqpWhhttp://www.shadowsandstone.com/Ancient-Ireland/Court-Tombs/Creggandevesky-Court-Tomb-Co/1932817_WTqpWhhttp://www.shadowsandstone.com/Ancient-Ireland/Court-Tombs/Creggandevesky-Court-Tomb-Co/1932817_WTqpWhhttp://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=10088http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=10088http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legananny_Dolmenhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legananny_Dolmenhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legananny_Dolmenhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrowmorehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrowmorehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrowmorehttp://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=6333339http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=6333339http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=6333339http://www.excavations.ie/Pages/Search.php?year=&county=&site_no=&site_name=Ferriter&site_type=&report_text=&author=&grid_ref=&smr_no=&excavation_license_no=&Submit=Do+Searchhttp://www.excavations.ie/Pages/Search.php?year=&county=&site_no=&site_name=Ferriter&site_type=&report_text=&author=&grid_ref=&smr_no=&excavation_license_no=&Submit=Do+Searchhttp://www.excavations.ie/Pages/Search.php?year=&county=&site_no=&site_name=Ferriter&site_type=&report_text=&author=&grid_ref=&smr_no=&excavation_license_no=&Submit=Do+Searchhttp://www.arch.ox.ac.uk/RS3.htmlhttp://www.arch.ox.ac.uk/RS3.htmlhttp://3.bp.blogspot.com/-musZtn8M-B8/U6hlAa809WI/AAAAAAAAH4A/8qv16P5Qpa4/s1600/Creggandevesky1018f-S.jpghttp://www.arch.ox.ac.uk/RS3.htmlhttp://www.excavations.ie/Pages/Search.php?year=&county=&site_no=&site_name=Ferriter&site_type=&report_text=&author=&grid_ref=&smr_no=&excavation_license_no=&Submit=Do+Searchhttp://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=6333339http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrowmorehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legananny_Dolmenhttp://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=10088http://www.shadowsandstone.com/Ancient-Ireland/Court-Tombs/Creggandevesky-Court-Tomb-Co/1932817_WTqpWh


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incorporatingBayesian modelling), it is now clear that their first phase of use was between3700 and 3570 cal BC.

So developer-led excavations have revealed a large number of settlement sites, and in theEarly Neolithic these are in the form of rectangular structures. Many of these are comprisedof large post-holes and significant wall-slot gullies deeply cut into the natural subsoil. For thisreason, nothing short of a bulldozer is really capable of erasing them from the landscape.Following from this, many examples of this form of site have been discovered and, in turn,have become an enduring focus of research for well over a decade. Work by the likes ofJessicaSmythandCormac McSparron,among others, has revealed much of the detail about domesticlife in the Neolithic. This has come through myriad analyses of deposited soils, the survivingcereal grains, and the few sites that have produced the bones of domesticated animals. Fromthis work, we can now see the Early Neolithic in terms of an economic landscape devoted tocereal farming and cattle husbandry. Other recent work, on the absorbedlipids in pottery,hasshown that the secondary products from these animals were also used, including dairying aswell as for meat.

Summed probability distribution of all radiocarbon dates from

Ulster contexts R McLaughlin

Taken together, the corpus of radiocarbon dates from Early Neolithic sites indicate that itbegan after 4000 cal BC. McLaughlin showed a graph depicting the summed probability of allthe available radiocarbon dates. As such, it provides a necessarily rough and imprecise idea ofwhat the known archaeological activity was like at this time. However, he is quick to note thatthe statistical justification for this approach is not proven and is still under debate.Nonetheless, it is a simple means of creating a general overview of activity and observing timeswhen activity was particularly high. He notes that the Early Neolithic rectangular houses causean incredible peak in activity at around 3700 cal BC. Although it appears to start slightly after4000 cal BC, this is misleading owing to the old wood effectwhere the radiocarbon datedcharcoal may be from heartwood, several centuries older than the event being examined. This

form of signal is particularly pronounced at the start of the Neolithic as many of these houseswere built of timbers felled in the primeval forest. These large, ancient trees thus enter thearchaeological record, eventually entering the samples, and influencing the radiocarbon dates.
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His next image showed the same graph, with all the dates from charcoal removed, and onlythe shorter lived samples being represented. These included cereal grains, hazelnut shells, andbones. While the latter have a greater own age, and contain material which exchanged carbonwith the atmosphere several years past, it is nowhere near as extreme as the issue posed by thedating of heartwood charcoal. When examining the evidence provided by the short-livedsamples, McLaughlin notes that the Neolithic House Horizon begins at around 3750 cal BC.Using Bayesian statistics to model the available short-lived samples from Neolithic housesallows the positing of defined start and end dates to this activity. Various researchers,including McSparron (2008), Whitehouse et al.(2013), andCooneyet al.have examined thisand have all produced estimations of when exactly this house horizon began and ended.Based on this work, we can now say (with c.95% certainty) that this phase began in the periodfrom 3720 to 3680 cal BC, and ended between 3640 and 3620 cal BC. In human terms, thisequates to a period of between one and five generations not a particularly long time!McLaughlin notes that the application of Bayesian models allows some impressiveimprovements in the standard calibrated chronologies. While the majority of the evidencepoints to the genesis of the Neolithic around 3700 cal BC, a small number of sites showevidence of slightly earlier activity at around 3800 cal BC, including Poulnabrone portal tomb,Co. Clare. When we take a more detailed look at the radiocarbon dates from Neolithic housesand plot them all together and compare it to the dates provided by the Bayesian model ofthe house horizon it is clear that the short-lived samples all converge around 3700 cal BC.However, if we examine the charcoal samples they are all earlier. McLaughlin notes that thisdistribution of dates is bimodal i.e.it has two peaks. One is just after 3900 cal BC and theother dates to a little after 3800 cal BC. Such a bimodal distribution can be taken to imply thatthere were two separate sets of activities in operation, rather than just a single form of activity.To McLaughlin, this earlier phase of charcoal dates relates to the old wood trees used to buildthe Neolithic houses. He interprets the post-3800 cal BC spike as dates from younger wood,including sapwood and twigs that were being burnt in and around the houses. He suggeststhat, in his personal opinion, the short lived samples (primarily cereals and hazelnuts) areevidence for the last phase of use for these structures. To his mind, these short lived samples

do not represent a phase of use of the sites, but in fact the evidence of their destruction. Whatwe are seeing in the end of the Early Neolithic is the sudden disappearance of this type ofrectangular house from the archaeological record. He describes it as an apocalypse it was acaprice that transcended local circumstances. It happened all through Ireland and suddenlywe find that these structures were abandoned pretty much forever. He notes that there isone Neolithic house in County Carlow that has a burial in the middle of it that dates toapproximately a century later. But this example aside, he sees no evidence that they wererevisited in any meaningful way. McLaughlin argues that, better than any form of Bayesiananalysis, if we accept that this abandonment was a single event rather than a more drawn-outprocess, we stand a reasonable chance of directly dating this event. As an illustration, heexplained that the laws of probability indicate that if an individual repeatedly fires arrows at asingle target, and all other variables being equal, the average of where those arrows land will

be the bulls-eye you just need enough arrows. As it happens, we do have enough arrows in the form of many hundreds of dates from Neolithic sites. By looking at where the average ofthese dates lie we can date with remarkable precision the house apocalypse. He hasplotted the modal dates (i.e.the point of a calibrated radiocarbon date where the probabilityit dated to a given year was the highest) as a frequency distribution. The resulting graph showsa particularly noticeable peak at 3652 cal BC. As he says: I think there was an apocalypse inthe Neolithic in 3652 BC. Admittedly, this is a relatively new statistical technique that iscurrently unaccepted by the archaeological establishment. McLaughlin calls the techniqueComputed Radiocarbon Average Probability, though he suggests that it may be better referredto by its initials.
http://www.ucd.ie/archaeology/staff/professorgabrielcooney/http://www.ucd.ie/archaeology/staff/professorgabrielcooney/http://www.ucd.ie/archaeology/staff/professorgabrielcooney/http://www.ucd.ie/archaeology/staff/professorgabrielcooney/


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Dick Proennekes cabin under construction in Twin Lakes, Alaska (Source)

From all this, McLaughlin reckons that weve got a Neolithic that kicks off around 3800 calBC, but doesnt get into its full flourishing, in terms of deposition of materials, until about acentury or so later. Drawing inspiration fromRay Mearslatest TV show,How the Wild Westwas Won,he observes how the North American forests are known to have been cleared as partof the westward migration of people. In the 17th and 18th centuries was a specialist class of

men who went forth into the wilderness, chopped down the trees, built farmsteads but didntactually do anything with them. It was only when a second wave of settlers came along, theysold the freshly cleared land and cabins to the new arrivals as readymade farms. Clearing theNeolithic primeval forest using only stone tools would have been a hugely difficultundertaking, but McLaughlin notes that there may be evidence for this early forest clearancein the bimodal distribution of the radiocarbon dates. At this point he mentions one of hisheroes,Dick Proenneke,the amateur naturalist who built a log cabin in the remote Twin Lakesregion of Alaska. Across the world, where anthropological and historical records exist, theevidence shows that people living in heavily forested environments build rectangular housesfrom logs the readymade availability of substantial timbers just appears to be readymade forconverting into rectangular houses! Thus, when people stop building in this way it suggests toMcLaughlin that they had simply run out of trees the primeval forest had been cut down and

a farmed, managed landscape replaced it.

If we plot all the known Early Neolithic houses, it is clear that there is a predominantly easterlydistribution in Ireland. This is, in part, itself an artefact of the areas in which recentdevelopment has occurred and where development-led excavations have been undertaken.However, the distribution of contemporary megalithic monuments is generally towards thewest. This too is probably quite biased as there has been less modern settlement anddevelopment to degrade and destroy these upstanding monuments outside of the major urbancentres. Even accounting for these various forms of bias and distortion of the record,McLaughlin argues that distinct regional variations may be noted. For example, there is adistinct preference for megalithic tombs in the northern half of Ireland, and along the valleyof the River Barrow, stretching from Waterford harbour to Dublin harbour. When this isplotted against where development-led excavations have discovered Early Neolithicsettlements, there is a noticeable overlap. Examples include the vicinity of what McLaughlin
http://www.dickproenneke.com/DickProenneke.htmlhttp://www.dickproenneke.com/DickProenneke.htmlhttp://www.dickproenneke.com/DickProenneke.htmlhttp://www.raymears.com/http://www.raymears.com/http://www.raymears.com/http://blog.raymears.com/2014/05/09/how-the-wild-west-was-won-with-ray-mears/http://blog.raymears.com/2014/05/09/how-the-wild-west-was-won-with-ray-mears/http://blog.raymears.com/2014/05/09/how-the-wild-west-was-won-with-ray-mears/http://blog.raymears.com/2014/05/09/how-the-wild-west-was-won-with-ray-mears/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Proennekehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Proennekehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Proennekehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Barrowhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Barrowhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Barrowhttp://2.bp.blogspot.com/-P5p_l1tiKEY/U6hlASkN61I/AAAAAAAAH38/wt74ojdUH04/s1600/DickProennekeCabin.jpghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Barrowhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Proennekehttp://blog.raymears.com/2014/05/09/how-the-wild-west-was-won-with-ray-mears/http://blog.raymears.com/2014/05/09/how-the-wild-west-was-won-with-ray-mears/http://www.raymears.com/http://www.dickproenneke.com/DickProenneke.html


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terms Derry-squiggle-Londonderry (though I believe it may be more appropriate in thiscontext to go for DerryLondon), the Antrim coast, Dundalk harbour, and along the Barrowcorridor. Looking at what type of sites are being constructed, in the north there are courttombs and rectangular houses, while in the south-east there are portal tombs and rectangularhouses. In the south-west which until relatively recently wasnt thought to have a Neolithicat all [see: here] just has rectangular houses. McLaughlin suggests that were only nowbeginning to get a sense of the different superposition of depositions going on in prehistory,even if were not yet at a point where we can satisfactorily explain what it all means. He saysthat a major change happened at around 3600 cal BC or at around 3652 cal BC if you followhis C.R.A.P. model. At this time the Neolithic houses suddenly fell into disuse and, instead,deposition happened at pit complexes and similar sites. These are spreads of material thatdont make particularly interesting looking (juicy) sites, which has led to relatively few ofthem being radiocarbon dated. He showed a map of sites that havent been dated butmightbeof this period and argues that they appear to be relatively widespread across the Island. Addedto this are a small number that have been dated. From these sites we get a picture, though onethat is necessarily more ephemeral owing to the lack of data, of a Neolithic economy that islargely unchanged from the preceding, Early Neolithic. He pointed to one particular dot in thevicinity of Larne, looked at me and asked is thatBallyboley? This was an absolute pig of a sitethat I directed in 2004 to 2005 just a giant, unending series of pits and random postholesthat took forever to excavate and I still cant explain whats going on. One of the reasons I cantexplain what happened there was that the post-excavation never progressed beyond a basicstratigraphic report and the thousands of decorated sherds of pottery and flint tools have neverbeen examined and professionally analysed. Just to give one clue as to the extraordinarywealth of this site: there was one feature that looked utterly un-special an amorphous blobabout a metre wide and perhaps two metres long. Two guys were sent off to clean it up andone took one side and one took the other. I came over to find that although they were justgiving it a light trowel down, the feature was so incredibly rich that they were able to play agame of whos found the most hollow scrapers? if memory serves, the final score wassomething like 8 to 7, and that wasnt even the richest feature. A further point, if slightly

tangential, is that although this was a development-led excavation the samples wereprocessed for free at QUB as a training exercise for students of various grades, and theradiocarbon dates were also done as part of the INSTAR Cultivating Societies project. Thataside, McLaughlin was able to tell me (and the assembled audience) that the radiocarbon datesfrom the site show that its the latest Early Neolithic site to produce cereals. Anyway returning to the pits he showed just what one of these typical pits looks like in excavation unimpressive, uninspiring, frequently lacking in artefacts, and unlikely to have the expense ofa radiocarbon date lavished on it.
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Density of Early Neolithic sites in Ireland, arrows represent hypothetical points of entry forthe Neolithic and/or points of contact with Britain. Regions of special interest: 1

DerryLondon, 2 Antrim Glens, 3 Dundalk Bay, 4 Barrow Valley, 5 Munster, 6. NorthMayo R McLaughlin

Turing to the types and numbers of features that have been dated, it can easily be seen that

there are a very large number of these pit and spread complexes in comparison to, say,rectangular houses. Although the data in the graph is slightly out of date, it still serves toillustrate the general point that although there were three times as many pit complexes asrectangular houses, a very large percentage of the houses have been dated (74%), incomparison to the pits (34%). This is thrown into even more stark relief when we look at it interms of those sites whose chronology we have a good understanding of. A significantproportion of the rectangular houses have well understood chronologies (48%), while only10% of pit and spread complexes are comprehended with the same degree of precision andclarity. Indeed, other site types have, as Rowan states, similarly diaboli cal levels ofunderstanding associated with them.

Known

Dated

Good

Chronology

Early Enclosure 4 3 2

Rectangular house 54 40 26

Other enclosure & timbercircles 55 17 7

Neolithic pits & spreads 159 54 16

Burnt mounds 7 7 3

Court tombs 398 12 4

One of the good things about working with calibrated radiocarbon years is that we may

compare the patterns we see with archaeological signals from other regions, with tree-ringdata, with ice-cores etc. These allow us to gain understandings of past climate and
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environment.Phil Barrattof QUB has been working to re-examine every available prehistoricpalaeoenvironmental study from Ireland. One of his objectives is the seeking out of potentialenvironmental events that correlate with the information in the archaeological record. One ofhis areas of study relates to the PlantagoGap.Plantago lanceolata(ribwort) is a weed thatgrows in association with arable farming. Thus, we can identify points in time where arablefarming was especially important by the amount of ribwort pollen recovered fromenvironmental samples. However, there is a period in the Middle Neolithic, after 3500 cal BCand before 2500 cal BC where pollen from the ribwort simply disappears from the record. Theimplication is, of course, that the importance of cereals diminished during this period. This isbacked up by the archaeological record itself, where cereal grains also cease to be foundbetween these dates. One of the challenges facing this form of analysis is the difference inscales of resolution between the fine grained chronology that can be achieved in thearchaeological record and the much less precise one of the environmental data. The MiddleNeolithic period simply doesnt have all that many identified settlements and the pollen recorddoes seem to indicate that arable agriculture just stopped. Despite the monitoring andexcavation of literally thousands of sites across Ireland, there is remarkably little well-dated,secure evidence of settlement sites in the period from c.3400 cal BC to c.3300 cal BC. However,there are plenty ofpassage tombsarguably, the most famous of all Neolithic monuments.These give an insight into the period where sites like Newgrange,Knowth,Dowth,etc. arelarge-scale, well-constructed monuments with art and astronomical alignments etc. andcarefully placed in the landscape, but almost all evidence of domestic activity is absent [seealso a review of a lecture by Robert Hensey: here]. As McLaughlin says: There are nosettlement sites. In fact the only thing we can really get at of day-to-day life is by looking at thehuman remains themselves, which are actually quite few and far between. Where theseremains have been examined, it appears that there is little difference between them and otherpeople at different times in the Neolithic, certainly in terms of what they were eating.Nonetheless, we still have no real idea as to how the highly ritualised and organised forms ofbehaviour that produced the Passage tombs related to day-to-day life. Acknowledging the oldchestnut that absence of evidence does not equal evidence of absence, McLaughlin proposes

that one solution to this issue may lie in a form of nomadic pastoralism, perhaps similar tothat experienced by the modernQashqaiin Iran. Part of their lifestyle includes the herdingand movement of large herds of domesticated animals by relatively small, but highly mobile,communities. Coming from this approach, McLaughlin sees the possibility of Passage tombsbeing located prominently in the landscape on hills and ridges where they were points inan annual cycle. In this way, the annual journey of the kin group intersected in significant wayswith the annual journey of the spirits/ancestors. However, as McLaughlin wryly observes:Archaeological theory really does reach is full flourishing when you dont actually have anyraw data.

In the Late Neolithic we have plenty of data and we see a return to site deposition. One of thestyles of pottery that becomes popular in Ireland at this time is grooved ware, a flat-based or

bucket shaped form, introduced from Orkney. In terms of sites, we see the introduction oflarge earthen henges.While we cant currently see it with chronological precision, it doesappear that the introduction of henges was a relatively sudden occurrence. Unfortunately, thispoint is just at one of the wiggles in the calibration curve for radiocarbon dates, making itdifficult to gain precise dates and insights. As McLaughlin says It does seems like a largenumber of people sprang out of the ground in the Late Neolithic. Similarly, the environmentalevidence from these sites indicate that there is a return to cereal cultivation and animalhusbandry.

In theBeaker periodwe see the development ofwedge tombs(a uniquely Irish development)andburnt mounds(known from all over northern Europe, but especially found in Ireland). Ifwe look at the numbers of these burnt mounds known versus those dated, we see that some 75

have been discovered and excavated, but only four have been particularly well dated. This isin strong contrast withcist burials,40 of which have been excavated and dated, of which 35
http://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/gap/Staff/ResearchStaff/DrPhilBarratt/http://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/gap/Staff/ResearchStaff/DrPhilBarratt/http://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/gap/Staff/ResearchStaff/DrPhilBarratt/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantagohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantagohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantagohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passage_gravehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passage_gravehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passage_gravehttp://www.newgrange.com/http://www.newgrange.com/http://www.knowth.com/knowth.htmhttp://www.knowth.com/knowth.htmhttp://www.knowth.com/dowth.htmhttp://www.knowth.com/dowth.htmhttp://www.knowth.com/dowth.htmhttp://rmchapple.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/archaeology-of-gatherings-conference.htmlhttp://rmchapple.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/archaeology-of-gatherings-conference.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence_of_absencehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence_of_absencehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence_of_absencehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qashqai_peoplehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qashqai_peoplehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qashqai_peoplehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grooved_warehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grooved_warehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grooved_warehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hengehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hengehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hengehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaker_culturehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaker_culturehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaker_culturehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge-shaped_gallery_gravehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge-shaped_gallery_gravehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge-shaped_gallery_gravehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burnt_moundhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burnt_moundhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burnt_moundhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cisthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cisthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cisthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cisthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burnt_moundhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge-shaped_gallery_gravehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaker_culturehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hengehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grooved_warehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qashqai_peoplehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence_of_absencehttp://rmchapple.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/archaeology-of-gatherings-conference.htmlhttp://www.knowth.com/dowth.htmhttp://www.knowth.com/knowth.htmhttp://www.newgrange.com/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passage_gravehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantagohttp://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/gap/Staff/ResearchStaff/DrPhilBarratt/


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may be described as having a well understood chronology. Beaker pottery arrives in Irelandaround 3260 cal BC and has died out by 2200 cal BC. This is of interest as the same potteryforms continue on in Britain until 1800 cal BC, so whatever was happening in Early BronzeAge Ireland caused Beakers to fall into disuse perhaps Ireland got more insular more quicklyat this time. Many of the cist burials have been discovered as part of agricultural works and,because they were so obviously a stone box containing bones, they were more frequentlyrecorded and at least the artefacts saved. Through the work of certain researchers, thechronology is particularly well understood and they are now known to have been in use from2200 cal BC to 1800 cal BC. In terms of the Early Bronze Age, we have burnt mounds (that arecreated and used across the whole period), wedge tombs that date to the start of the period,and cists that essentially date to its end or at least the end of the middle part of the EarlyBronze Age. If we analyse the distribution of radiocarbon dates from these cist burials, we findthat in the south of the island they appear at around 2170 cal BC and move into the northernportion of the island around 2110 cal BC. Because so many of these burials have been so welldated, we can see genuine demographic patterns in the data. McLaughlin says we can seethese Early Bronze Age people that brought with them the insular pottery style, the cist burialtradition they appeared in the south of the island and they moved north. If all classes ofprehistoric monuments were as well dated as the cist burials, it would simply revolutionise ourunderstanding of those times.

In the final section of the lecture, McLaughlin ventured into the quagmire that is suggestingpopulation numbers at various times in Irish prehistory. While it is not an easy topic to tackle,it is one that is frequently asked by the public, and is one that deserves a thoughtful answer.He began with a graph of radiocarbon dates from North America, explaining that in such alarge landmass the relatively localised demographic and economic changes that occurredbefore the arrival of Europeans can be averaged-out. For this reason it is a useful tool withwhich to compare the radiocarbon dates from archaeological activity in other places as it,essentially, provides a null hypothesis. To a large extent, it allowsus to say, all other factorsbeing equal, what would the distribution of radiocarbon dates look like? the only factor that

really influences this distribution is the exponential decay of datable material. This expressesitself in a graph that shows lots of recent radiocarbon dates, with somewhat fewer further backin time, and fewer and fewer as one travels further and further into the past. As McLaughlinsays: this decay channel is provided by erosion and diagenesis allows you to see thisexponential decay. Such a null hypothesis allows us to apply statistical tests to some of theapparent patterns in the Irish archaeological record. McLaughlin explained that he fitted anexponential decay function on the available northern European data set and compared it tothe Irish evidence. Although not many pits, relatively speaking, have been dated they are morerobust against the research interests and biases of individual archaeologists and institutions.His graph indicates that there are vastly more radiocarbon dates from the Early Neolithic thanwhat one would expect under the null hypothesis. McLaughlin describes the increase inradiocarbon dates in the Late Neolithic as a wiggly line that increases gradually and at

approximately the same rate as the null hypothesis line. It markedly increases at around 3300cal BC. He argues that this may be explained in terms of there being another immigration intoIreland around 3300 cal BC. Presumably there was an immigration of some form at the startof the Irish Neolithic and there was another one in the time after 3000 cal BC. He sees theseas being characterised by the movement of a significant number of people. This would havebeen at a time when the great passage tombs like Knowth were still in use, leading him to thevastly understated remark that this must have been an interesting time to live. After thispoint, the radiocarbon signal increases gradually. He sees that there may have been successivewaves of people, each bringing with them new technologies, languages, and religiousideologies, but in terms of the absolute rate of archaeological deposition the number of sites,and ultimately, the number of people there do not appear to be too many changes after 3000cal BC. In a prodigious feat of blue sky thinking he attempts to turn all this data into hard

figures of population. He notes the development-led excavations have discovered EarlyNeolithic rectangular houses at almost the same rate as we know the surviving pattern of Early
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Christian ringforts. There are approximately 60,000 ringforts known from the island ofIreland and using this as a very crude analogue, he suggests that there were once the samenumber of Early Neolithic houses. From the radiocarbon evidence we can say, with a greatdegree of certainty, that each of those houses lasted for between one to five generations. If weput a number out of mid-air (orswag)and say that there were 10 people at every site, we get apopulation in Ireland in the period from 3750 cal BC and 3600 cal BC of 120,000 to 600,000people. To put this in context, he suggests that the landscape was almost as heavily populatedin the Early Neolithic as the modern Irish countryside of, say, Tyrone. McLaughlin argues that,in many respects, this makes an awful lot of sense. He notes that he once calculated that, giventhe density of the primeval Neolithic forest, it would have required every man, woman, andchild to cut down trees at a rate of only one every week to clear the entire island within that150 year period. In the Early part of the Middle Neolithic or the transition from the Early toMiddle Neolithic (3600 cal BC to 3400 cal BC) there are three times the number of pitdeposition sites as there are Early Neolithic houses. However, he suggests that fewer peopleare responsible for each site as these are simple holes in the ground in comparison to the morecomplex rectangular structures. Also, Bayesian modelling indicates that these sites were inuses from around four to eight human generations. Extrapolating from all these limitsand caveats, suggests a population of between 100,000 and 200,000 people. In the MiddleNeolithic proper, during the period of the Passage tombs, we just dont know what thepopulation would have been like as we simply do not have the identified settlement sites. If weaccept even for a few moments the huge assumption that they became nomadicpastoralists, anthropological studies indicate that the average group size would have been inthe region of 40 to 150 people. If we then make the simple-minded (McLaughlins term)assumption that there was a one-to-one relationship between Passage tombs and kin groups and therewere approximately 150 tombs we get a population of only 6,000 to 23,000people in Ireland at this time. Although there are more caveatsthan you can shake a dirtytrowel at, McLaughlin is firm in his assertion that the population was markedly smaller thanin the Early Neolithic. He sees them as completely different societies that have nothing incommon other than the fact that we today call them both Neolithic. In the Late Neolithic the

rate of pit deposition is approximately that of the period from 3600 cal BC to 3400 cal BC, ifwe factor in the exponential decay of radiocarbon dates. Thus, he estimates that the LateNeolithic population was in the range from 50,000 to 100,000 people. While there are moresites of Beaker and Early Bronze Age date, what McLaughlin terms the taphonomic correctionagain suggests a population of between 50,000 to 100,000 people.

McLaughlin stresses that the act of gathering together all the data from the availablearchaeological excavation literature allows incredible new insights into past lives andactivities, particularly whenthose things happened. While it sounds simplistic, he is keen tostress that this form of research is actually a radical departure in modern archaeology. Whilethere has been so much good research and theoretical discourse about, for example, whatgrooved ware meant to the people who created it, or how the landscape was encountered by

the agriculturalists, or how and why power and communities were transformed at the start ofthe Bronze Age, this new wealth of data allows us to ask questions about the realities ofdomestic life in prehistory that could not even have been framed a decade ago. He sees this asa direct result of the boom in development-led archaeology that has created a data set that isalmost the best resolved in the wide world.

Returning to the opening analogy of the planet Saturn, McLaughlin notes that we still do notknow where on this scale of knowledge we currently are. He says: Weve built the telescopewe have radiocarbon dating weve amassed knowledge about the distant past at a rate thatwas unimaginable a few years ago. What we dont know though ishave we resolved the CassiniDivision? Can we see surface detail on the surface of Saturn?Or are we still being foiled bywhat we dont understand about the structures? I would like to think we are somewhere in

between Huygens and Cassini. And soon, if I were to come back in maybe five years time, andpresent again, we will have a much better resolved idea of what is going on. McLaughlin has
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amassed a total of 1206 radiocarbon dates from Ulster but, he argues, there shouldbe ten toone-hundred times that number. He argues that there is little point anymore in excavatingarchaeological features if they are not going to be radiocarbon dated. Citing Bayliss etal.(2007), he notes that a date is just a number and a radiocarbon date is just an expensivenumber but McLaughlin goes beyond this to argue that an archaeological feature withouta radiocarbon date is just an expensive hole in the ground. He believes that excavationresources should be weighted in favour of understanding chronology, because it is only anunderstanding of chronology that leads to a true understanding of the past. He concludes thatwhat has been discovered so far is remarkable, but improvements are definitely needed.Commercial archaeological companies must produce more radiocarbon dates, they must takebetter samples [youll find no argument from me on this one!here|here|here], in particularwe need to date more ordinary pits and not just the juicy features!

With that, the lecture ended and the floor was thrown open to a variety of questions and ahearty round of applause and profuse thanks to the speaker. Regular readers of this blog willknow that Ive made my views on the value (or otherwise) offered by the commercialarchaeology sector (at least in Northern Ireland) exceedingly clear. Rather than bore you allwith a rehash of my arguments, Ill direct the reader in search of a counterpoint tohere.Eventhough Rowan is coming at the utility of the commercial sector to enhance our sharedknowledge from a totally opposite direction (he sees the doughnut, Im looking at the hole),hestill reaches the conclusion that what weve got to work with is much less than we should have.As he notes above, we should have vastly more radiocarbon dates from Irish sites in therange of two orders of magnitude. Leaving those kinds of questions aside, we must turn to thearchaeological insights he provides and ask if hes right. I have no doubt that McLaughlin is in the long run going to be proven wrong about most of his points. As he says, ourunderstanding may well be somewhere in between Huygens and Cassini, but that fails tocountenance the modern images of Saturn taken from Hubble. Please, dont believe that thisis in any way a criticism of Rowans work its exactly the opposite! If future researchers seefurther and understand deeper, they will only have done it through standing on the shoulders

of Rowan and those like him who are constantly pushing the boundaries of our knowledgeof chronology. One way or another, when McLaughlin speaks, hes certainly worth listeningto!

ReferenceBayliss, A., Bronk Ramsey, C., van der Plicht, J. & Whittle, A. 2007 Bradshaw and Bayes:towards a timetable for the NeolithicCambridge Archaeological Journal17.1 (suppl.), 1-28.

McSparron, C., 2008 Have you no homes to go to: calling time on the early IrishNeolithicArchaeology Ireland, 22.3.

Schulting, R.J., Murphy, E., Jones, C., & Warren, G., 2012 New dates from the north, and a

proposed chronology for Irish court tombsProceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 112C.

Whitehouse, N. J., Schulting, R. J., McClatchie, M., Barratt, P., McLaughlin, T. R., Bogaard,A., Colledge, S., Marchant. R., Gaffrey, J. & Bunting, M. J. 2013 Neolithic agriculture on theEuropean western frontier: the boom and bust of early farming in Ireland ArchaeologicalScience

NoteI am grateful to Rowan for having a read over this post and helping correct a number of errorsand for providing clarification on a number of points. However, any that remain are minealone. Rowan has also been kind enough to provide me with two of the images from his

presentation, for which he has my sincere thanks.
https://www.academia.edu/411608/Just_an_expensive_numberhttps://www.academia.edu/411608/Just_an_expensive_numberhttps://www.academia.edu/411608/Just_an_expensive_numberhttps://www.academia.edu/1881691/Radiocarbon_Dating_theoretical_concepts_and_practical_applications_all_you_ever_wanted_to_know_about_14C_but_were_afraid_to_ask_https://www.academia.edu/1881691/Radiocarbon_Dating_theoretical_concepts_and_practical_applications_all_you_ever_wanted_to_know_about_14C_but_were_afraid_to_ask_https://www.academia.edu/1881691/Radiocarbon_Dating_theoretical_concepts_and_practical_applications_all_you_ever_wanted_to_know_about_14C_but_were_afraid_to_ask_https://www.academia.edu/4551438/Chapple_R._M._2013_Radiocarbon_dating_theoretical_concepts_and_practical_applications_all_you_ever_wanted_to_know_about_14C_but_were_afraid_to_ask_https://www.academia.edu/4551438/Chapple_R._M._2013_Radiocarbon_dating_theoretical_concepts_and_practical_applications_all_you_ever_wanted_to_know_about_14C_but_were_afraid_to_ask_https://www.academia.edu/4551438/Chapple_R._M._2013_Radiocarbon_dating_theoretical_concepts_and_practical_applications_all_you_ever_wanted_to_know_about_14C_but_were_afraid_to_ask_http://rmchapple.blogspot.com/2013/02/empire-of-dirt-time-to-call-time-on.htmlhttp://rmchapple.blogspot.com/2013/02/empire-of-dirt-time-to-call-time-on.htmlhttp://rmchapple.blogspot.com/2013/02/empire-of-dirt-time-to-call-time-on.htmlhttps://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CC0QFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.researchgate.net%2Fpublication%2F231854242_Bradshaw_and_Bayes_Towards_a_Timetable_for_the_Neolithic%2Ffile%2F9c9605184030a629d5.pdf&ei=NhWjU8vuB4qM0AXtYw&usg=AFQjCNGCILt75XpxHb4ADyU0KWe1zDd43Q&sig2=dXRtKiuKXYFt_2DB_bTKYA&bvm=bv.69411363,d.d2k&cad=rjthttps://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CC0QFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.researchgate.net%2Fpublication%2F231854242_Bradshaw_and_Bayes_Towards_a_Timetable_for_the_Neolithic%2Ffile%2F9c9605184030a629d5.pdf&ei=NhWjU8vuB4qM0AXtYw&usg=AFQjCNGCILt75XpxHb4ADyU0KWe1zDd43Q&sig2=dXRtKiuKXYFt_2DB_bTKYA&bvm=bv.69411363,d.d2k&cad=rjthttps://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CC0QFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.researchgate.net%2Fpublication%2F231854242_Bradshaw_and_Bayes_Towards_a_Timetable_for_the_Neolithic%2Ffile%2F9c9605184030a629d5.pdf&ei=NhWjU8vuB4qM0AXtYw&usg=AFQjCNGCILt75XpxHb4ADyU0KWe1zDd43Q&sig2=dXRtKiuKXYFt_2DB_bTKYA&bvm=bv.69411363,d.d2k&cad=rjthttps://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CC0QFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.researchgate.net%2Fpublication%2F231854242_Bradshaw_and_Bayes_Towards_a_Timetable_for_the_Neolithic%2Ffile%2F9c9605184030a629d5.pdf&ei=NhWjU8vuB4qM0AXtYw&usg=AFQjCNGCILt75XpxHb4ADyU0KWe1zDd43Q&sig2=dXRtKiuKXYFt_2DB_bTKYA&bvm=bv.69411363,d.d2k&cad=rjthttp://www.jstor.org/stable/20617930http://www.jstor.org/stable/20617930http://www.jstor.org/stable/20617930http://www.jstor.org/stable/20617930https://www.academia.edu/1377471/New_dates_from_the_north_and_a_proposed_chronology_for_Irish_court_tombshttps://www.academia.edu/1377471/New_dates_from_the_north_and_a_proposed_chronology_for_Irish_court_tombshttps://www.academia.edu/1377471/New_dates_from_the_north_and_a_proposed_chronology_for_Irish_court_tombshttps://www.academia.edu/1377471/New_dates_from_the_north_and_a_proposed_chronology_for_Irish_court_tombshttp://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440313002987http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440313002987http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440313002987http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440313002987http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440313002987http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440313002987https://www.academia.edu/1377471/New_dates_from_the_north_and_a_proposed_chronology_for_Irish_court_tombshttps://www.academia.edu/1377471/New_dates_from_the_north_and_a_proposed_chronology_for_Irish_court_tombshttp://www.jstor.org/stable/20617930http://www.jstor.org/stable/20617930https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CC0QFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.researchgate.net%2Fpublication%2F231854242_Bradshaw_and_Bayes_Towards_a_Timetable_for_the_Neolithic%2Ffile%2F9c9605184030a629d5.pdf&ei=NhWjU8vuB4qM0AXtYw&usg=AFQjCNGCILt75XpxHb4ADyU0KWe1zDd43Q&sig2=dXRtKiuKXYFt_2DB_bTKYA&bvm=bv.69411363,d.d2k&cad=rjthttps://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CC0QFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.researchgate.net%2Fpublication%2F231854242_Bradshaw_and_Bayes_Towards_a_Timetable_for_the_Neolithic%2Ffile%2F9c9605184030a629d5.pdf&ei=NhWjU8vuB4qM0AXtYw&usg=AFQjCNGCILt75XpxHb4ADyU0KWe1zDd43Q&sig2=dXRtKiuKXYFt_2DB_bTKYA&bvm=bv.69411363,d.d2k&cad=rjthttp://rmchapple.blogspot.com/2013/02/empire-of-dirt-time-to-call-time-on.htmlhttps://www.academia.edu/4551438/Chapple_R._M._2013_Radiocarbon_dating_theoretical_concepts_and_practical_applications_all_you_ever_wanted_to_know_about_14C_but_were_afraid_to_ask_https://www.academia.edu/1881691/Radiocarbon_Dating_theoretical_concepts_and_practical_applications_all_you_ever_wanted_to_know_about_14C_but_were_afraid_to_ask_https://www.academia.edu/411608/Just_an_expensive_number

chapple, r. m. 2014 review - rewriting the (pre)history of ulster- a synthesis of developer led...

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