The Irish Stone Axe Project:

Cooney, Gabriel; Mandal, Stephen; O'Keeffe, Emmett

doi:10.2307/j.ctvh1dv6v.42

Cited by 8 publications

(8 citation statements)

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“…Our study uses several sources of information on the spatial distribution of axeheads, primarily from the IPG (Clough and McK 1988) and Neolithic Axehead Archive (Pitts 1996), but also further relevant finds from England, Wales, and southern Scotland that have been brought together or recorded in more standardised ways by the Irish Stone Axe Project (ISAP, Cooney and Mandal 1998) and Projet JADE (Sheridan and Pailler 2012). When combined and de-duplicated, these sources provide a list of some 18,120 axeheads, each of which has a petrological description, a find location, and an object type (axehead, axe hammer, etc.).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

British Neolithic Axehead Distributions and Their Implications

Schauer

Bevan

Shennan

et al. 2019

J Archaeol Method Theory

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Neolithic stone axeheads from Britain provide an unusually rich, well-provenanced set of evidence with which to consider patterns of prehistoric production and exchange. It is no surprise then that these objects have often been subject to spatial analysis in terms of the relationship between particular stone source areas and the distribution of axeheads made from those stones. At stake in such analysis are important interpretative issues to do with how we view the role of material value, supply, exchange, and demand in prehistoric societies. This paper returns to some of these well-established debates in the light of accumulating British Neolithic evidence and via the greater analytical power and flexibility afforded by recent computational methods. Our analyses make a case that spatial distributions of prehistoric axeheads cannot be explained merely as the result of uneven resource availability in the landscape, but instead reflect the active favouring of particular sources over known alternatives. Above and beyond these patterns, we also demonstrate that more populated parts of Early Neolithic Britain were an increased pull factor affecting the longer-range distribution of these objects.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

British Neolithic Axehead Distributions and Their Implications

Schauer

Bevan

Shennan

et al. 2019

J Archaeol Method Theory

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“…One loose rock sample, macroscopically similar to most artefacts, was collected from Holly Island, thin-sectioned for petrological microscope examination and compared with the three thin-sectioned artefacts. The lithics were analysed macroscopically, using a standard technological descriptive system (Inizan et al 1999) and an Irish typological system (Woodman et al 2006); the axes were recorded using the Irish Stone Axe Project system (Cooney and Mandal 1998).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The lithology of the ground/polished axes has been identified by the Irish Stone Axe Project (ISAP 2006). These are predominantly shale or mudstone, which together are the most common raw material for axes in the midlands and western Ireland, with over 3,000 examples from throughout Ireland (Cooney and Mandal 1998). The only other axe material noted is basalt; a little over 300 basalt axes have been identified from around Ireland, most from the north-east, but with a number from north of Lough Allen in Co. Donegal, and around the southern part of the Shannon system (Cooney and Mandal 1998).…”

Section: Other Lithologiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

New materials, traditional practices: a Mesolithic silicified dolomite toolkit from Lough Allen, Ireland

Driscoll¹,

Menuge²,

O'Keeffe³

2014

Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy

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A lithic assemblage is described from numerous localities on the shores of Lough Allen, part of the River Shannon system in Ireland. By macroscopic and microscopic comparison with locally collected rock, the vast majority of the 869 artefacts are determined to be worked from a type of silicified dolomite*a finegrained rock type with nearly isotropic fracture properties not previously recognised amongst Irish prehistoric lithic assemblages. The geological distribution of this type of silicified dolomite is restricted to Lough Allen and the upland and lowland areas west, north and east of the lake shore. It is demonstrated through typo-technological analysis that the vast majority of the artefacts are from the Later Mesolithic, forming the second largest Mesolithic surface collection, after Lough Gara, in the west of Ireland. The collection includes a small number of axe roughouts, the first to be recorded in a lakeside setting in Ireland. The analysis provides firm evidence for extensive Later Mesolithic activity in the Lough Allen area based mostly on locally available material. 14 C dating of an in situ oak trunk from the lake shore is also presented and indicates lake levels lower than those of today during the Bronze Age, which together with the distribution of lithics suggests that a broader lake shore may have been exposed during the Later Mesolithic.

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“…In Ireland, the Mesolithic affinities of some ground and polished stone axes has been confirmed by the excavation of complete and fragments of polished stone axes from sealed and dated Mesolithic features at Mount Sandel (Woodman 1985) and the association of a single radiocarbon date with an assemblage of polished axes and diagnostically Mesolithic stone tools at Lough Boora (Costa et al 2005;Woodman 1978). These dated finds form the minority of a much larger collection of stone axe finds from across Ireland (the vast majority of which lack stratigraphic security) and are believed collectively to span the Mesolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age (Cooney & Mandal 1998). Within Mesolithic contexts, the typological distinction between axes and adzes is seldom (and inconsistently) drawn.…”

Section: The Chronological Context Of the Hermitage Polished Axe Withmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stone Dead: Uncovering Early Mesolithic Mortuary Rites, Hermitage, Ireland

Little¹,

Gijn²,

Collins³

et al. 2016

CAJ

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In Europe, cremation as a burial practice is often associated with the Bronze Age, but examples of cremated human remains are in fact known from the Palaeolithic onwards. Unlike conventional inhumation, cremation destroys most of the evidence we can use to reconstruct the biography of the buried individual. Remarkably, in Ireland, cremation is used for the earliest recorded human burial and grave assemblage (7530–7320 bc) located on the banks of the River Shannon, at Hermitage, County Limerick. While we are unable to reconstruct in any great detail the biography of this individual, we have examined the biography of a polished stone adzehead interred with their remains. To our knowledge, this adze represents the earliest securely dated polished axe or adze in Europe. Microscopic analysis reveals that the adze was commissioned for burial, with a short duration of use indicating its employment in funerary rites. Before its deposition into the grave it was intentionally blunted, effectively ending its use-life: analogous to the death of the individual it accompanied. The microwear traces on this adze thus provide a rare insight into early Mesolithic hunter-gatherer belief systems surrounding death, whereby tools played an integral part in mortuary rites and were seen as fundamental pieces of equipment for a successful afterlife.

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The Irish Stone Axe Project:

Cited by 8 publications

References 0 publications

British Neolithic Axehead Distributions and Their Implications

British Neolithic Axehead Distributions and Their Implications

New materials, traditional practices: a Mesolithic silicified dolomite toolkit from Lough Allen, Ireland

Stone Dead: Uncovering Early Mesolithic Mortuary Rites, Hermitage, Ireland

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