St. Peter's N.S.

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NEOLITHIC STORIES

You can find our Neolithic stories in PDF version HERE.

You can find out Neolithic stories in Word HERE.

Our trip to Newgrange

Today 3^rd November, Ms Keane O Hagan’s class, fifth and sixth, took a trip to Newgrange Burial Tomb. Our class had been learning about Neolithic age for a while. We took the bus from school to the Interpretive Centre. Inside were fur clothes, a house made of straw and even a skeleton with a disk removed from its’ skull. After that we crossed the river Boyne and took a bus to the actual Newgrange tomb. There we could almost see Knowth and Dowth. Our guide took us inside the long passage to the three recesses. It had a corbelled roof and lots of beautiful drawings on the walls. He turned off the lights inside until it was pitch dark. He then turned on two light bulbs which gave us the illusion of sunlight coming through the roof box. It was brilliant and a great experience.

Brú na Boínne

Brú na Boínne is about 8km inland from Drogheda and describes an area where there is a long bend in the river Boyne. Brú na Boínne means the place or mansion of the Boyne. There are 40 known passage tombs in Brú na Boínne. Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth are the three main tombs.

Newgrange

Newgrange passage tomb is around 11m High and 80m in diameter. The 97 greywacke and another 450 similar stones made up the passage and chamber structure. The front section (now restored) has a white quartz wall with some granite stones in it. The tomb passage is 19m long and faces South East. The chamber is a cruciform. There are three recesses. The right hand recess is the largest and most decorated. The roof of the tomb is corbelled, 6ms high. Corbelling is when large slabs are placed one on top of the other with the dome getting narrower as it goes up then it is sealed with a cap stone.

The Neolithic or New Stone Age

The Neolithic people were farmers. Before them there were the Mesolithic people. They were the first people in Ireland and they arrived around 8000 BC. They were hunter gatherers and hunted deer and wild boar and gathered nuts and berries. In 4000 BC farming techniques developed in Eastern Europe and formed the beginning of the Neolithic or Stone Age era. It lasted from approximately 4000 – 2500 BC.

When Neolithic settlers arrived in Ireland it was 95% densely forested. They cut down some of the woodland with stones axes and burnt some of it so they could build their farms. Various tools were used to till the land for sowing such as mattocks and wooden ploughs. Before this Ireland didn’t have many crops so the Neolithic people brought wheat and barley with them and grew them. They were used to make porridge and bread. There were only wild pigs in Ireland so the settlers brought cows, goats and sheep, probably in dug-out canoes.

The Neolithic people also introduced porcellanite which is tougher than flint. It was used to make axes and tools. Their houses were rectangular and made from either tree trunks sunk vertically into the ground or from wattle covered in mud. The roof was made from timber beams with reed thatch covering it. There was a small hole in the roof to let the smoke to escape from the fire.

The Neolithic settlers also brought pottery to Ireland. They were usually made by coiling clay round and round to build a simple pot shape. Some were decorated by pressing fingers, stones or sticks into the wet clay. It was hardened by placing them over the fire. They were used for storing food and if you put a small amount of fat into it and set it alight it became a simple but effective lamp.

Everyday Life in Neolithic Ireland

The Neolithic farmers lived in wattle and daub houses made from wood and thatched with reeds. There would have been 20 to 30 people living together. Each Neolithic community may have belonged to a wider group of communities that formed a tribe. Some people liked to barter with each other. On their farms they grew wheat and other grains. They kept cattle, pigs, goats and sheep. Unlike their Mesolithic predecessors these people cooked indoors by lighting a fire in the centre of their house.

Megalithic Art

The word megalithic comes from the Greek language, mega meaning large and lithic meaning stone. Flint or quartz chisels were used to cut into the stone. No one is certain what the carving means on the stone. They could be decorations or communications. Many believe the artwork was of spiritual significance to it’s’ creators.

Winter Solstice

Between 19^th and 23^rd December, sunlight illuminates the inside chamber of Newgrange. This lasts for 17 minutes. The sunlight travels through the roof box which is an opening above the door. The accuracy is remarkable as Newgrange was built 500 years before the pyramids. It is thought that Newgrange was and is for worshipping the sun and bringing new life to the spirits of the ancestors buried in the tomb. Neolithic people were exceptionally skilled builders and astronomers.

Materials and Construction

A lot of stones in the Boyne Valley tombs are made from greywacke. This stone was from Clogherhead, north of Drogheda and most likely transported by sea and river to Newgrange and then hauled up a hill using a technique called log-rolling to the site of Newgrange. The white quartz on the front came from the Wicklow mountains, a huge distance for Neolithic man. The branite boulders in the quartz came from the north shore of Dundalk bay. We cannot be sure how the tombs were built but one thing is for sure that these tombs are amazing.

Neolithic Megaliths

Megaliths are large earthen constructions. There are over 1500 megalithic tombs in Ireland. The majority are in the northern half of the country. A court tomb is a segmented (in sections) stone chamber covered in an earthen mound with an entrance courtyard that usually faces east. Portal tombs or Dolmens are also mainly found in Northern Ireland. There is one at the Ballymascanlon Hotel in Co Louth. They consist of three or more vertical stones on top of which is perched usually one huge capstone. The capstone always leans down towards one side leaving a large opening at the high end. Originally human remains were placed inside the tomb. A wedge shaped tomb is a burial chamber which is narrow at one end, usually decreasing both in height and width west to east producing a wedge shape. The doorway generally faces East. Wedge tombs are also called gallery graves or cromlechs. About 500 wedge tombs survived in Ireland.

Passage Tombs

Passage Tombs are found in Eastern and Northern Ireland. Passage Tombs consist of a mound of earth with layers of stones. The passage is made of large flat stones, all weighing more than one tone. The stones make a sort of tunnel and at the end there are three chambers which are in a cone shape. The roof is called a corbelled roof. In the chambers there are stone basins where the ashes of bodies were placed. The chambers were also decorated in fine art carved into the stone walls. Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth are some of the most famous passage tombs in Ireland today.

Neolithic Pots

When trying to recreate Neolithic pots we rolled the clay into a ball. Next we pinched them to make a hole. We smoothed them until all cracks were gone. We decorated them using pencils, pinecones and all shape and sizes of shells.

Everybody in our class made a thirty to thirty three centimeter sausage of clay which teacher coiled into pots. We then smoothed the inside and outside before every person in the class put their own design on them. Then all the pots were left to dry. We then painted them and covered them in glue for varnish.