New material on Bullaun stones

Archaeologist David Eitam said in his comment about multi hole bedrock mortars: "It seems that making flour, was in the past a collective activity. The reason for that was that acorn or cereal grinding was done using grinding stones. This was hard monotonous work which was best endured if done in company.  We can easily imagine the lively group of women covering the large bedrock and the sound of grinding and chat among the crowded millers."

We know from the ethnographic data from North America, that grinding acorns was at least in some cases a communal activity. You can find more info on this in the article "The Distribution and Function of Bedrock Mortars in California".  We also know from the archaeological data from Europe, that grinding cereal was also a communal activity. We can actually see it on this clay model depicting collective grain grinding from Cyprus, from Iron Age settlement at Tel Dor. You can find more details about this site in "An Iron Age I Canaanite/Phoenician Courtyard House at Tel Dor: A Comparative Architectural and Functional Analysis" 

The easiest way to make communal grinding areas was to cut the mortar holes in the bedrock, creating bedrock mortars. Like these ones at Indian Grinding Rock State Park:

I already wrote abut bedrock mortars in my article on Bullaun Stones. In that articles I compared the yet unclassified European bedrock sites with classified North American bedrock mortar sites. I then asked whether the European  should be also classified as bedrock mortars, considering that they are functionally identical to the North American ones. 

In this article I would like to present some new (to me :) ) evidence that supports my hypotheses that a lot of the European bedrock stones with large and deep cups could be (yet) unclassified bedrock mortars. 

I will start with the bedrock mortars used by the Chalcolithic communities from Central Israel (4,500–4,000/3,900 BCE). The grinding holes were cut into a bedrock with different profiled holes used for grinding different type of material, like grain (and possibly acorn), olives, grape (?). These are examples of the bedrock mortars from the Gassulian (Ghasulian) culture. 

You can find more info about these grinding bedrock mortars in the article "Cereal in the Ghassulian Culture in Central Israel: Grinding Installation as a Case Study. Israel Exploration Journal 59,1: 63-79"

This is the picture of the bedrock holes from the Ghassulian Horbat site. 

The picture was taken from the article "Excavations at Horbat 'Illit B: A Chalcolithic (Ghassulian) Site in the Haelah Valley". However these holes are in this article classified as flint excavation holes. This is based on the fact that a piece of flint was found at the bottom of one of the holes. 

I wander why would anyone make such smooth narrow round holes to excavate flint? Why not just continue to break bedrock to the left and right of the flint peace to see if there is more hidden in the bedrock? I believe that these are instead bedrock mortars. And this particular one was abandoned when the grinding exposed the hard flint at the bottom, rendering the mortar hole useless. But that is just my opinion. 

Since then, I came across this article, "Excavations at Modi‘in – H̱orbat H̱adat and Be’erit (A)" by Edwin C.M. van den Brink, which classifies these features as bedrock mortars...

Interesting how opinions vary...

From the above three articles it is plain to see that there is still no consensus on the issue of the classification of these bedrock holes. 

But a lot of work has been done lately on collecting and classifying all the available data related to bedrock sites. This is a good article that explores this issue: "Late Epipalaeolithic Rock-Cut Installations and Groundstone Tools in the Southern Levant. Methodology and Classification System".

Now, bedrock mortar type of utensils start to appear in 13000 BP and their use peaked in 6000 BP (Late Chalcolithic) and continued in rural MBII sites. 

Here are some Natufian bedrock mortars from Mount Carmen site dated to 12500 BP. You can find more info on this site in the article "3D Characterization of Bedrock Features: A Natufian Case Study".

This article entitled Article "Experimental Barley Flour Production in 12,500-Year-Old Rock-Cut Mortars in Southwestern Asia" presents result of the experimental archaeology experiments at a Natufian site in the Southern Levant documents for the first time the use of 12,500-year-old rock-cut mortars for producing wild barley flour, some 2,000 to 3,000 years before cereal cultivation. 

Considering that we have evidence of the use of acorns as food in the south western Asia in late Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Early Neolithic time, I would suggest that these mortars could also have been used for grinding acorns, and that that was their original intended use. But once you develop a suitable grinding technology for grinding acorns, it can be applied, with slight modifications to grinding of any similar type of material, like wild grains.  

But Natufians also used single hole boulder mortars, as I already said in my post "Acorns in archaeology".

So obviously grinding was not always communal. This is the situation found in all the other areas where we find multi hole bedrock mortars. So why did people make multi hole bedrock mortars? You can do communal grinding using multiple single boulder mortars. But they are more difficult to make. So maybe multi hole bedrock mortars are older? Or maybe they were located near a source of food, like oak forest or wild grain field, or source of metal ore or pigment, and were used for industrial scale grinding?

These are the large cup holes from the hillside boulders at Göbekli Tepe, dated to (9500 - 8000 BC). The hillside is apparently covered in cupping holes all about 500mm - 600mm, big enough to be acorn or grain grinding holes like the ones found on Bullaun stones in Ireland and the North American grinding boulders and on the above Natufian bedrock mortars. 

These bedrock mortars were discovered in recently excavated site Karahan Tepe located near Göbekli Tepe but even older. Karahan Tepe is dated to pre 10000BC...

As I said above, once you develop a suitable grinding technology for grinding acorns, it can be applied, with slight modifications to grinding of any similar type of material, like wild grains. Or ore. We know from the ethnographic and historical records that almost identical types of mortars were used for grain, spices, pigments and ore grinding. So it is no surprise to find bedrock mortars used for ore grinding. 

This is the Pino del Oro Mining Zone (ZoMiPO) is located straddling the Duero river, within the Arribes Natural Park, in the western part of Zamora province, and adjacent to the Portuguese border. It involves a group of very peculiar gold mining structures dating from the Roman period (1st-2nd Centuries). These are grinding mortars cut into the bedrock and used for grinding ore. Were they originally used for grinding cereal and before that for grinding acorn?

I believe that this new evidence adds a bit more support for my theory that Bullaun stones from Ireland and the similar stones with large deep cup marks, were made to be used as mortars for grinding probably originally acorns, and then wild grain, grain, tubers and even ore...

So what do you think, could the Irish Bullaun stones, like this Clonmore Triple Bullaun Stone be actual bedrock mortars?

The debate will undoubtedly continue. Great. :)

Linkardstown cists

In my post about the development of Late copper age Montenegrian tumuluses I asked the question: Was there an immigration from Ireland to Montenegro at the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC? And is it possible that the cultural process of "raising" of burial cists from the ground, which happened in Montenegrian tumuluses in the first half of the 3rd millennium BC was influenced by these Irish immigrants? 

And here is the reason why I asked this question: Linkardstown cists. 

Linkardstown cists are so named after first excavated example at Linkardstown in Co. Carlow. The book "Early Ireland: An Introduction to Irish Prehistory" By Michael J. O'Kelly, Claire O'Kelly describe Linkardstown Cists like this:

They are built from large slabs or boulders which were arranged on the ground surface, generally in polygonal plan. The original Linkardstown Cists from county Carlow measured 2m X 2.3m at the ground level, but much smaller examples are known, some of them less than a meter in length and width. The side slabs were slanted inwards so that the dimensions at the top were less than at the ground level . All spaces between the side slabs were usually infilled with smaller pieces of stone and other slabs were placed against the outside. A capstone or capstones closed the top.

A small cairn surrounded the structure and then the whole cairn was covered with the circular mound of sods or earth bounded by a stone kerb. The mounds vary in diameter from about 35m to 20m. 

The normal burial consisted of one or two male bodies, sometimes flexed or crouched.

The above two pictures are taken from the "Irish Decorated Neolithic Pottery" by M. Herity. The reason why this book talks about the Linkardstown cists is because some, but not all Linkardstown cists contain round bottomed, highly decorated pots. The pots are shouldered and the ornament consists of channeled grooves, executed with a blunt point in geometric panel, a series of oblique strokes being frequently employed.

This is an example of one of these decorated pots. This one is from the tumulus located at Ballintruer More, Co Wicklow

In "An archaeological reconsideration of solar mythology" by Karlene Jones-Bley we read that "the common elements of these vessels are rayed or starred motifs in combination with a cruciform pattern all found on the base of the vessels...".  In same Linkardstown cists, a plain round bottomed shouldered bowl is found with the decorated pots.

This is the list of all the Linkardstown cist burials i could find:

Ballintruer More, Co Wicklow
Clogher Lower (Co. Roscommon)
Ballinagore (Co. Wicklow)
Knockast, Co. Westmeath

Ardcroney, Co Tipperary

Ashley Park, Co Tipperary
Baunogenasraid, Co. Kilkenny
Knockmaree, Co. Dublin

Jerpoint west,  Co. Kilkenny

Drimnagh, Co. Dublin

They are mostly found in Eastern and Central part of Ireland. 

So what is the big deal about Linkardstown Cist burials? Well they are almost exact copies of the Montenegrian late copper age, early bronze age tumuluses.

Both Linkardstown Cist burials and Montenegrian tumuluses have:

1. Central stone dolmen cist poligonal (Linkardstown Cist) or rectangular (Montenegrian tumuluses) which was built on the surface of the ground.
2. Cists narrow towards the top and are covered by a massive capstone or stones.
3. Cists were cobbled, had a floor made of stone and sand.
4. Cists were sealed. Space between the stones in filled with smaller stones (Linkardstown Cists) and clay (Montenegrian tumuluses)
5. Each cist contained single burial
6. Central stone dolmen cist was covered by multilayered tumulus with multiple stone curbs
7. Funerary offerings contained decorated and undecorated food ware.

Why no one made any link between the Linkardstown Cist burials and Montenegrian tumuluses before now? 

Well firstly, as I said in my posts about Montenegrian tumuluses, they were discovered very recently and there is very little published data about them outside Montenegro. Secondly the Montenegrian tumuluses were originally dated to 2nd millennium BC and the Linkardstown Cist burials were originally dated to 4th millennium BC. So this is very big time difference and any similarity across such time frame is ususally attributed to chance.

But recently both Linkardstown Cist burials and Montenegrian tumuluses did some serious time travel which brought them much much closer together on a timeline. Montenegrian tumuluses were dated to the period between 3000 BC and 2400 BC. The Linkardstown Cist burials were recently dated and the results were published in the article entitled "Radiocarbon Dates for Neolithic Single Burials" published by A. L. Brindley and J. N. Lanting. The C14 dates fall to the period between 4800 - 4200 BP.  BP means "before present" but really it means "before 1950". Why 1950? Because the "present" time changes, standard practice is to use 1 January 1950 as commencement date of the age scale, reflecting the fact that radiocarbon dating became practicable in the 1950s. The abbreviation "BP", with the same meaning, has also been interpreted as "Before Physics"; that is, before nuclear weapons testing artificially altered the proportion of the carbon isotopes in the atmosphere, making dating after that time likely to be unreliable. And the reason why additional radioactivity produced by humans affects radiocarbon dating so much is because radiocarbon dating is based on measuring of the amount of radioactive carbon (C14, radiocarbon) in organic matter. 

The radiocarbon dating method is based on the fact that radiocarbon (C14) is constantly being created in the atmosphere by the interaction of cosmic rays with atmospheric nitrogen. The resulting radiocarbon combines with atmospheric oxygen to form radioactive carbon dioxide, which is incorporated into plants by photosynthesis; animals then acquire C14 by eating the plants. When the animal or plant dies, it stops exchanging carbon with its environment, and from that point onwards the amount of C14 it contains begins to decrease as the C14 undergoes radioactive decay and gets converted into a stable C12 carbon isotope. Measuring the amount of C14 relative to C12 in a sample from a dead plant or animal such as piece of wood or a fragment of bone provides information that can be used to calculate when the animal or plant died. The older a sample is, the less C14 there is to be detected.

Originally it was thought that the amount of C14 absorbed by plants every year was the same resulting in the constant C14/C12 ratio. But people soon started to wonder if this was really the case or was it possible that the amount of C14 in the atmosphere varied through time. 

Over time, discrepancies began to appear between the known chronology for the oldest Egyptian dynasties and the radiocarbon dates of Egyptian artefacts. Neither the pre-existing Egyptian chronology nor the new radiocarbon dating method could be assumed to be accurate, but a third possibility was that the C14/C12 ratio had changed over time. The question was resolved by the study of tree rings: comparison of overlapping series of tree rings allowed the construction of a continuous sequence of tree-ring data that spanned 13,900 years. In the 1960s, Hans Suess was able to use the tree-ring sequence to show that the dates derived from radiocarbon were consistent with the dates assigned by Egyptologists. This was possible because although annual plants, such as corn, have a C14/C12 ratio that reflects the atmospheric ratio at the time they were growing, trees only add material to their outermost tree ring in any given year, while the inner tree rings don't get their C14 replenished and instead start losing C14 through decay. Hence each ring preserves a record of the atmospheric C14/C12 ratio of the year it grew in. Carbon-dating the wood from the tree rings themselves provides the check needed on the atmospheric C14/C12 ratio. Carbon-dating of the tree rings made it possible to construct curves designed to correct the errors caused by the variation over time in the C14/C12 ratio. This correction process is called radiocarbon date calibration. 

So... Now that we know how the radiocarbon dating works, let's get back to the Linkardstown Cist burials. The radiocarbon dates obtained from the bones deposed in these burials fall into the period 4800 - 4200 BP. If we assume that the C14/C12 ratio was constant during last 5000 years, then these two dates translate into 2800 - 2200 BC. But if we take into account the variability of the C14/C12 ratio and use the calibration curve to correct the variation error, we end up with calibrated dates 3400 - 2800 BC. 

And this is where things get fuzzy. And the reason is that the radiocarbon date calibration is based on one very big assumption: that the C14/C12 ratio obtained from a tree ring in Germany dated to 3000 BP is the same for instance in Ireland at the same time and across the whole northern hemisphere...And this does not have to be the case. We have basically replaced the assumption that the C14/C12 ratio is constant in time with the assumption that the C14/C12 ratio is constant in space. And what is more, the initial calibration of the radiocarbon date calibration curve was done by comparing the radiocarbon dates with archaeological dates, which were obtained using again assumptive methods which could also be imprecise. Basically the measurement of of the imprecision of the radiocarbon dating was done by a measure which was itself more or less guessed and therefore imprecise...

This is actually recognized problem. We have to correct the measured date using calibration, but we know that both the measuring process and the calibration process have huge margin of error. And this is why we often see things like: "this object was dated to the period 3500 - 3200 BC..."

So....Where were we? Ah, the Linkardstown Cist burials and their relationship with the Montenegrian tumuluses. If we use calibrated dates then the Linkardstown Cist burials directly predate the Montenegrian tumuluses. But if we use plain dates then the Linkardstown Cist burials completely overlap with the Montenegrian tumuluses. I believe that the truth is somewhere in the middle. I believe that the Linkardstown Cist burials are probably slightly later than the calibrated dates and that they partially overlap with the Montenegrian tumuluses. But even if we stick with the calibrated dates of the Linkardstown Cist burials, we still have a very interesting situation indeed. We have two almost identical burial structures being built first in Ireland and then in Montenegro either during immediate succeeding periods or during partially overlapping periods. 

Now we could say that that was a coincidence and that Ireland and Montenegro are too far apart geographically to have been able to influence each other culturally in the 3rd millennium BC. Well we could say that, if it wasn't for the fact that we know that there was a migration from Montenegro via Sicily and Iberia to Ireland during the first half of the 3rd millennium BC. A migration which brought metallurgy, oxen, cist burials, golden cross discs and today's Irish male population main Y haplogroup R1b genes. Irish Annals preserved the record of this migration under Partholon, and now we have archaeological and genetic data to prove that these records are true histories. 

But was this cultural influence bidirectional? 

The Linkardstown Cist burials were built in Ireland just before and during the initial phase of the "raising" of the cists from the ground in Montenegrian tumuluses. Is it possible that who ever built Linkardstown Cist burials in Ireland at the end of the 4th millennium and the beginning of the 3rd millennium somehow ended up in Montenegro at the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC, bringing with them the tradition of burying their dead in Linkardstown Cist burials? And is it possible that they, after mixing with Yamna people, influenced the process of "raising" of the stone cists in Montenegrian tumuluses above ground, eventually producing rectangular copies of the Linkardstown Cist burials? 

Well it is possible actually. The builders of the Linkardstown Cist burials could have arrived from Ireland to Montenegro following the maritime trading route along the Eastern Atlantic and Northern Mediterranean coast. The same route that Partholon followed during his migration from Montenegro to Ireland 500 years later. 

Interesting, very interesting. What do you think of all this?

Anyway, while you are pondering this, here is some data on so far excavated Linkardstown Cist burials. I hope you will find it interesting. Also if you have any additional data about Linkardstown Cist burials or any similar burials from that period pleas let me know.   

Ardcroney Linkardstown Cist burial (from Modern Antiquarian)

A massive central cist of sub-megalithic proportions was uncovered at the centre of a denuded cairn which originally measured about 33mn. in diameter of which about 20m. remains. About 2.5in. of the cairn height survives, The cist was polygonal in plan and consisted of a single large stone inclining at about 60 degrees at each side and of two vertical boulders at each end. The floor was paved with small irregularly-shaped flat stones and measured 1.75in. by 1.4in. The cist was 69cm. high (internally) and 1.48m. by 93cm. at the mouth. It was covered by a large single capstone, 1.9m. long by 1.73m. wide by 51cm. in max. thickness.

Two disarticulated and unburnt skeletons identified by Prof. CA. Erskine as being of men of 17 and 45 years – lay on tile paved floor, one on either side of a shouldered, round-bottomed, highly decorated shallow bowl of late Neolithic date, the bones had been disturbed before investigation. The bowl was covered with channelled decoration comprised of pendant triangles of horizontal lines and dots as well as circumferential lines around the rim and shoulder, the ornament on the base being arranged on a quadripartite system.

The cist and cairn fit into the Linkardstown group while the bowl and mode of burial make this the most western example, so far, of the ‘South Leinster” Single Burial tradition of the late Neolithic. A full excavation of the structure will explore the nature of the cairn, the existence of kerbs, and the relationship of cairn, and a now removed earthen ring, to the cist.

You can find more pictures of the Adcroney site on this page on the Modern Antiquarian website.

Ashleypark Linkardstown Cist burial (from Modern Antiquarian)

Situated on the NW shoulder of an E-W ridge in farmland. A megalithic structure is exposed in a round mound which in turn is encircled by two low wide banks with internal ditches giving an overall diameter of 90m. The structure was uncovered during bulldozing operations in 1980 after which the site was excavated (Manning, 1985a). The mound, 26m in diameter, consists of a cairn core, 18 to 20m in diameter, overlain by a covering of clay, The megalithic structure stands eccentrically within the cairn. It is trapezoidal in plan, some 5m long and narrows from 2.3m wide at the SE or inner end to 1.3m at the open NW end. It was built around a limestone erratic which has a sloping upper surface and serves as a floorstone. Two stones form the inner end of the structure. There is a stone at right angles to the SW side of the structure 1.2m from the inner end. This, in combination with a rough wall divides it in two. That part of it forward of the dividing wall was filled with cairn stones among which animal bones and the bones of a child less than a year old were found. The inner end of the structure, roofed by a skeletal remains of an adult male and a child were found here along with a variety of animal bones, a bone point, some chert flakes and Neolithic pottery, including sherds bearing channelled decoration. 

You can find more pictures of the site on this page on the Modern Antiquarian website and on this page from Secret Ireland.

Baunogenasraid Linkardstown cist burial (From Irish Stones)

 

The burial was discovered in the Autumn 1972 during the excavations of a tumulus. The first stage of the excavation led to the discovery of ten human burials, five cremations and five inhumations, along with a single flint flake and a food vessel that helped archaeologists dating the remains to the Early Bronze Age.
The second stage of the excavation discovered a cist placed at the centre of a large cairn. Inside the cist the disarticulated, unburnt remains of a male adult described "of exceptional size" were found along with a finely decorated bowl of Linkardstown type, that is a bowl with a T-rim around, and a small perforated object of lignite.

You can find more pictures of this site on this page of the Irish Stones site.

Knockmaree Linkardstown cist burial (From fountain resource group)

The stones we see today at Knockmaree are what are left of the original tomb, the earthen mound long since gone.

The site at Knockmaree was first discovered in 1838, during landscaping works. It was brought to the attention of the Royal Irish Academy (RIA; the academy for the sciences and humanities, including antiquaries), by a Mr. T. Drummond . When members of the RIA first visited the site, it looked distinctly different from today. They saw a large mound, surrounded by a few smaller ones. Upon excavating the mound and examining its contents, they found the tomb itself and a number of pottery vessels. The description below is the original description of the tomb, by George Petrie: “The tomb consisted of a table, or covering stone, 6feet 6inches in length, from 3 feet 6 inches to 3 feet in breadth and 14 inches in thickness. This stone rested on five supporting stones, varying from 2 feet 6 inches to 1 foot 3 inches in breadth and about 2 feet in height…and there were 5 other stones, not used for supports, but as forming the enclosure of the tomb…” 

What is interesting is that the pottery vessels mentioned above were identified as funerary urns from the Bronze Age period and date to approximately 2500 BC. You can see why I am not sure that the calibrated dating of the Linkardstown Cist burials is correct.

Two adult male skeletons, the skeleton of a dog and a large number of seashells, were all recovered from within the tomb. The shells were all local, from the Dublin coastline, and formed two necklaces, one of which can be seen on the next picture. It was found within the tomb, under the skulls of the male skeletons. From Treasures of the National Museum of Ireland Irish Antiquities, 2002, page 73.

This is the original drawing of the tomb from the Royal Irish Academy’s Report. From Petrie, 1838. Page 188.

You can find more pictures of this site on this page of the Irish Stones site and this page of the Fountain resource group.

Ballintruer More Linkardstown cist burial (from A Neolithic Burial Mound at Ballintruer More, Co. Wicklow)

The destruction by bulldozer of a circular mound with kerb revealed a polygonal cist with a floor of fine sand and which contained some disarticulated and apparently broken bones representing part of the skeleton of an adult male. An empty pottery vessel had been placed in the centre of the grave immediately to the west of the bones.

This pot, like a number of vessels from other burials of this type, is a fine Bipartite Bowl. The cist was in the middle of a circular mound 24m in diameter and slightly less than 2m high in the middle above the level of the surrounding land. The cist had seven sides. Each of the side stones had at least one further stone outside it and in three cases there were two additonal supporting stones. All sloped inwards at a steep angle from the bottom to the top, making the bottom at 80cm being much wider than the top at 30cm. The slabs forming the sides were regular, as if specifically selected and shaped for this purpose and varied in thickness from 2 to 8 cm. They averaged 95 cm in length and of this 30 cm was inserted into sub soil, which was a buff coloured clay. The stone cist was packed on all sides with with stones averaging 20cm in width. Finally, it was closed by two thing lower capstones over which lay two much heavier ones. The cist with its external stone packing was covered by a circular mound now of gray clay, held in position by a kerb of large stones. You can find more details on this cist tumulus in these two articles:

You can find more information about this burial in "A Neolithic Burial Mound at Ballintruer More, Co. Wicklow" by Joseph Raftery

Jerpoint west Linkardstown cist burial (from The Excavation of a Neolithic Burial Mound at Jerpoint West, Co. Kilkenny)

This site, which was not marked on the 0.S. maps of the area, was discovered in 1972 when the landowner decided to tip the mound into a adjacent quarry in order to minimise the danger to his livestock. A mechanical excavator was employed for this purpose and roughly two thirds of the area of the site was severely damaged when a large polygonal cist was uncovered. The cist was polygonal in form the sidestones being doubled in some cases. Three, (perhaps four), capstones covered the burial. he floor of the cist was roughly cobbled. It contained a burned and an unburned burial, fragments of plain and decorated Neolithic vessels and a bone pin.

The cist was bedded into the old ground surface. It was placed approximately centrally in a mound of complex construction. A core of boulders piled against the cist. A deposit of flat fairly regular stones each pitched upwards in the direction of the cist. A mantle of soil mixed with a high proportion of sod, in which, at intervals, occurred thin layers of flat stones carefully laid. The soil mound was delimited by three concentric arcs of fairly regular stone laminae resting on the old ground level, between these occurred a series of radially set stones. The site was disturbed on the north and south by modern field boundaries. 

You can find more information about this burial in "The Excavation of a Neolithic Burial Mound at Jerpoint West, Co. Kilkenny" by M. FitzG. Ryan .

I hope you enjoyed this article. Until the next time, keep smiling, stay happy and healthy..

Ór - Ireland's Gold

The earliest evidence for gold working dates to the fifth millennium BC. This is based on the discovery of the Varna cemetery which is located approximately half a kilometer from Lake Varna and 4 km from the Varna city centre in Bulgaria. The cemetery was dated to the period 4,600 BC to 4,200 BC. The cemetery belonged to the Charcolitic Varna culture. The graves of this cemetery were full of  golden artifacts and they are considered to be the oldest golden artifacts in the world.

These Varna guys were obsessed with gold. As a matter of fact, just one of the graves from the Varna cemetery, the so called golden grave (grave 43) contained more gold, than has been found in all the other archaeological sites in the world from that epoch...

It seems that this love of gold was not universal. The surrounding Balkan cultures like Vinca Culture seem not to care very much for gold and the situation was pretty much the same in the rest of Europe at that time.

It took over a 1500 years for gold work to reach Britain and Ireland. The first gold objects appear in Ireland at the end of the third millennium (2200 BC). But it seems that once the Irish discovered gold, they became obsessed with it and couldn't have enough of it. But it seems that the Irish had a very peculiar and exclusive taste when it came to the type of gold objects they liked. A few of these kind of thingies were found in the Early Bronze age archaeological site:

But it seems that the favorite type of golden trinkets of the late 3rd millennium Irish were these two types of gold objects: a peculiar gold lunulae and even more peculiar gold cross discs:

The Gold lunula (plural: lunulae) is a distinctive type of late Neolithic, Chalcolithic or (most often) early Bronze Age necklace or collar shaped like a crescent moon. Most have been found in Ireland, but there are moderate numbers in other parts of Europe as well, from Great Britain to areas of the continent fairly near the Atlantic coasts. Although no lunula has been directly dated, from associations with other artefacts it is thought they were being made sometime in the period between 2200–2000 BC. A wooden box associated with one Irish find has recently given a radiocarbon dating range of 2460–2040 BC.

Beautiful things don't you think? The Irish seem to think so too. Of the more than a hundred gold lunulae known from Western Europe, more than eighty were found in Ireland.

Here some examples of European (Non Irish) gold lunulas and gold discs from "'Here comes the sun....' solar symbolism in Early Bronze Age Ireland" by Mary Cahill.

Lunula and a pair of gold discs from Cabeceiras de Basto, Portugal (© MuseuNacional de Arqueologia)

Pair of gold discs from Oviedo,Spain (© J. Camino Mayor, MuseoArqueológico de Asturias)

This is what you can read on the National Museum of Ireland's website about the 3rd millennium Bronze Age Irish gold craze:

The National Museum of Ireland’s collection of Bronze Age gold work is one of the largest and most important in western Europe. The immense quantity of Bronze Age gold from Ireland suggests that rich ore sources were known. 

Gold has been found in Ireland at a number of locations, particularly in Co. Wicklow and Co. Tyrone. The gold is found in alluvial deposits from rivers and streams. This gold is weathered out from parent rock and can be recovered using simple techniques such as panning. These gold deposits are still exploited today.

This gold is weathered out from parent rock and can be recovered using simple techniques such as panning. In Wicklow mountains this technique is still used today by prospectors to find gold nuggets as you can see on the below picture and this video.

The Wicklow Mountains form the largest continuous upland area in Ireland. They occupy the whole centre of County Wicklow and stretch outside its borders into Counties Carlow, Wexford and Dublin. Where the mountains extend into County Dublin, they are known locally as the Dublin Mountains



Wicklow mountains are criss-crossed with thousands of streams and a lot of them carry gold and some of them carry a lot of gold.

This is the Wicklow gold nugget (or more precisely its replica).

This gold nugget, weighing 682 grams is the biggest gold nugget found on British Isles. It was found in the Ballin valley stream which is located near the town of Avoca in County Wicklow, Ireland, in September 1795. A cast of the ‘Wicklow Nugget’ is held in the Natural History Museum in London. The stories of how the nugget was discovered are many. One story is it was found by workers felling trees on an estate owned by Lord Carysfort. Another that it was found by a local school teacher walking on the banks of what is now the Goldmines River. Either way the nugget sparked the first and only gold rush in Ireland. The search for the source of the gold that can still be panned today in the rivers of Wicklow has gone on since 1795 but the mother lode has never been found.

So there is plenty of gold in Ireland. But how did the Irish learn how to find it, exploit it and make these amazing gold artifacts from it? The National Museum of Ireland's website say this:

While we do not know precisely how the late Neolithic people of Ireland became familiar with metalworking, it is clear that it was introduced as a fully developed technique. Essential metalworking skills must have been introduced by people already experienced at all levels of production, from ore identification and recovery through all stages of the manufacturing process....Basically the gold working had become well established in Ireland and Britain together with a highly productive copper and bronze working industry. 

What this basically says is that gold working was brought to Ireland by the outsiders, invaders, by the same people who brought copper mining and metallurgy. These guys arrived to Ireland between 2400 BC and 2200 BC looking for copper. And they found it. In huge quantities.

Records of mining in Ireland date back to the Early Bronze Age when southwest Ireland was an important copper producer, with evidence of old copper workings at Ross Island located in Killarney, Co Kerry.

Ross Island is a claw-shaped peninsula in Killarney National Park, County Kerry. Copper extraction on the site is believed to be the source of the earliest known Irish Pre-Bronze Age metalwork, namely copper axe heads, halberds and knife/dagger blades dating from 2,400 - 2,200 BC. These finds have been distributed throughout Ireland and in the West of Britain - in South Britain the metalwork was imported from across the Channel.

The archaeology of the site has unearthed both mining operations and a smelting camp where the Copper ore was processed into a type of metal distinctive enough to be traced these early tools. As there is no evidence that the complex technology had developed spontaneously, this early metallurgy would indicate contacts with mainland Europe - in particular, extending along the coastline from Spain through Normandy. The Ross island operation was associated with beaker pottery and continued until ca 1,900 BC

And at the same time we see the appearance of the gold artifacts in Ireland too. So something very interesting happened between the 6th millennium BC and the 3rd millennium BC on the European Metal scene. As I already said the earliest evidence for gold working dates to the fifth millennium BC Varna culture. The earliest evidence for copper working dates to the 6th millennium Vinča culture. And as I said already, for a while the gold dudes from Varna and the copper and bronze dudes from Vinča didn't really go out much and didn't mix with one another or anyone else for that matter. They were too busy digging, smelting and making Metal, perfecting their art you know. But then one day, probably at the end of the 4th millennium, the beginning of the 3rd millennium, they must have been invited to a party organized by these new foreign kids who just came to Europe, from the steppe. I mean those steppe dudes were mixing some strong stuff in them pots they had, and their parties were the hottest thing in town. So I guess the Copper dudes kitted themselves out with all the copper tools and the Gold dudes kitted themselves out with all the gold bling and went to the party. What happened at that party is a bit hazy. But at some stage someone, and I would bet it was one of those steppe kids, said something like this: "Hey you, the copper dudes! Have you ever thought of making weapons out of copper?! I know the agricultural tools are useful but they are not cool man! You know what's cool?! Daggers! And Axes! And you really have to start working on your image! You look too rough, too uncultivated, too like "Neolithic" or something! You need something like what those gold dudes are wearing! But you can't just wear shit loads of gold bling and expect girls to say "He is so cool"! No, that just makes you look like a sissy! What you really want is shit loads of copper weapons and shit loads of gold bling! Then you gonna look like gangstas! Girls love gangstas man!" The rest is history. From that moment on, a once relatively peaceful Europe is overrun by a bunch of copper weapons wielding, beaker quaffing gangstas, covered in gold...

The guys who jumped out of the boat on the Irish shore in the late 3rd millennium BC were one of those guys. But these were no sissies, a peace loving people who kept themselves to themselves. They came to Ireland to mine and process copper to make weapons and I am sure they knew how to use them. It is very possible that they very quickly make themselves the only gang in town. O and these gangstas loved gold. So they, employed the same mining and metallurgical skills they used to find, mine and process Irish copper to find and process Irish gold and turn it into gold lunulae and gold cross discs that they loved so much. Right? Not exactly.

Back to the National Museum of Ireland's website then goes on to say this:

Although gold has played an important part in the cultural history of Ireland, notably in the wealth of recovered gold ornaments,  records of gold extraction or its occurrence are relatively sparse and poorly documented prior to the 17th century....Although gold has been found in Ireland at a number of locations, particularly in Co. Wicklow and Co. Tyrone, it has not yet been possible to identify the ancient sources where gold was found (which was used for the Early Bronze Age gold artifacts found in Ireland)....

The National Museum of Ireland's website is basically saying that even though the Early Bronze Age Irish were heavily blinged, we have no idea where the gold used to make this bling came from. Well, it seems that the information on the National Museum of Ireland's website is slightly out of date. We actually now know where the gold used to make the early Bronze Age Irish bling came from, and it didn't come from Ireland. This is the result of the latest study conducted by the scientists from the Bristol university who recently, together with the scientists from Leeds university, compared the gold from which the early Irish gold artifacts were made, with the naturally occurring gold deposits in the British Isles. The results were published in the paper entitled: "The genesis of gold mineralisation hosted by orogenic belts: A lead isotope investigation of Irish gold deposits". You can also find them in the paper entitled "A Non-local Source of Irish Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Gold".

Chris Standish, an archaeology PhD student in Bristol University used the latest advances in geochemistry to compare Irish native gold and museum gold using variations in the four natural types of lead atoms, or lead isotopes. The quantities of lead are tiny, around 0.002 per cent, and were measured using a mass spectrometer. The chemical composition of the material used to make the  early Bronze Age, 2,200 to 1,800 BC gold artifacts was cross checked and proved to be consistent. This suggests that all the early Bronze Age Irish gold have come from one area, possibly from river gravels. This chemical composition was then compared with the composition of all known Irish natural gold deposits. The chemical composition of the naturally occurring gold in Ireland was collected by the geologist Rob Chapman from Leeds University, who has spent hours standing in ice-cold streams and rivers across Ireland panning for gold. 

Scientists couldn’t find a match between any of the Irish gold deposits and the Museum gold. They examined likely areas, including the gold deposits from Mournes, Croagh Patrick, Counties Wicklow, Wexford and Waterford. Looking purely at the lead isotopes, gold in the artifacts is most consistent with gold from the southeast (Wicklow). But there is too little silver and trace metal for it to be a proper match. Standish suggests there may be gold he has yet to analyse, but another, controversial, explanation is gold imports. According to Chapman, “The lead signature he [Standish] gained from the early Bronze Age artifacts corresponded to the granite rocks in Cornwall”. This means that the Early Bronze Age Irish gold artifacts were made from gold found and panned in Cornwall. 

This is a golden lunula from Cornwall dated to the period 2400BC-2000BC. Does it predate the Irish ones?

Chapman then went to say that the results of the study "have irritated some archaeologists".

So Chapman then had to add this to his paper: “Natural gold does occur in Cornwall, but it is difficult to find and we cannot say categorically whether the gold content is compatible or not. Since the early Bronze Age, the land has changed so much that you cannot visit the same sites available to the Bronze Age people; some lie underwater. One possibility is that there is a deposit of gold somewhere in Ireland which has eluded modern prospectors but was used by Bronze Age people...."

Given extensive gold exploration in Ireland since the 1980s, a hidden source is somewhat unlikely, say geologists, dimming hopes of an Irish El Dorado. But it’s a possibility. And archaeologists and historians, who were irritated by the results of this study and who are refusing to accept the new geological data are clinging to it. 

One of those irritated archaeologists is Mary Cahill, curator of the National Museum of Ireland’s Bronze Age collection, who had this to say about the whole thing: "...there is no supporting archaeological evidence for extensive gold imports to Ireland at this time. We know that Irish copper and bronze objects turn up in Britain, but there are no signs of gold coming in. And clues pointing to southern Britain as a source for Irish gold are not conclusive....". This is a perfect example of how archaeologists and historians are refusing to accept the latest scientific data because it contradicts with commonly accepted theories of what happened. 

I also love the way these finds were actually interpreted by Standish: 

Lead author Dr Chris Standish says: “This is an unexpected and particularly interesting result as it suggests that Bronze Age gold workers in Ireland were making artefacts out of material sourced from outside of the country, despite the existence of a number of easily-accessible and rich gold deposits found locally.

“It is unlikely that knowledge of how to extract gold didn’t exist in Ireland, as we see large scale exploitation of other metals. It is more probable that an ‘exotic’ origin was cherished as a key property of gold and was an important reason behind why it was imported for production.”

Isn't a much simpler and more logical explanation that the Early Bronze Age gold objects found in Ireland were made in the same place where the gold was found, in Cornwall and that they were then brought to Ireland as finished products? But that would make even more people even more irritated. This would effectively put an end to the accepted history and the story of the Early Bronze Age Ireland being the Golden Isle, the center of the European gold working crafts of that time ...So the official archaeology and history is surprised and irritated with the new data showing that the "Irish gold" was brought to Ireland. 

But guess what? The old Irish annals, the so called "pseudo history" tells us that the gold was "brought into Ireland" and that it was brought right about the time when the first gold artifacts start appearing in Ireland.

The old Irish annals tell us that the first race that lived in Ireland were Fomorians. Then, after the flood, came the people of Partholón who are credited with introducing cattle husbandry, plowing, cooking, dwellings, trade, and dividing the island in four. But Partholon also brought gold. 

Labor Gabala Erenn tells us that Partholon had with him two merchants: Biobhal (Bibal) and Beabhal (Babal). Babal brought cattle to Ireland, and Bibal brought gold.

So when did Partholon come to Ireland? 

The Annals of the Four Masters says they arrived in 2520 Anno Mundi (after the "creation of the world"), Seathrún Céitinn's Foras Feasa ar Érinn says they arrived in 2061 BC, Annals of Four Masters says that they arrived at 2680 BC. So Sometimes in the second half of the 3rd millennium. 

So far the "pseudo history" is right on the money. 

And finally where did the Parthalon come from?

The earliest surviving reference to the Partholóin is in the Historia Brittonum, a 9th-century British Latin compilation attributed to one Nennius. Here, "Partholomus" is said to have come to Ireland from Spain.

Seathrún Céitinn's 17th century compilation Foras Feasa ar Érinn, says that Partholón was the son of Sera, the king of Greece, and fled his homeland after murdering his father and mother. He lost his left eye in the attack on his parents. He and his followers set off from Greece, sailed via Sicily, around Iberia, and arrived in Ireland from the west, having traveled for seven years.

The Lebor Gabála Érenn, an 11th-century Christian pseudo-history of Ireland, tells us more. It tells us that Partholón came from either Sicily or Mygdonia which was an ancient territory, part of Ancient Thrace. According to the Lebor Gabála Érenn Partholon was the son of Sera, son of Sru, a descendant of Magog, son of Japheth (see Japhetites), son of Noah. Partholón and his people sail to Ireland via Gothia, Anatolia, Greece, Sicily and Iberia, and landing at Inber Scéne (Kenmare in County Kerry). This is the closest landing point next to the ancient Ross Island copper mine. This mine was the reason why the pot loving, copper weapons making and gold bling wearing Beaker gangstas came to Ireland. 

So is the Irish "pseudo history" right about the Balkans being the birth place of Partholon like it was about when he landed in Ireland, where he landed in Ireland and the fact that he and his people had brought gold to Ireland? I believe so. But I will talk about this in one of my next posts.