Obsessed with butter

Buttering toast, the Irish way...

In 2015 an article entitled "Milking the megafauna: Using organic residue analysis to understand early farming practice" was published in the Journal of Environmental Archaeology by Jessica Smyth and Richard P. Evershed... 

The authors of the paper analysed residues found in nearly 500 cooking pots from Neolithic Ireland dated to the period 4,000 to 2,500 BC...

Ninety per cent of the residues tested for fat origin were found to be dairy fats, with ten per cent found to be meat fats (beef or mutton) or a mixture of milk and meat...

Dr Smyth, who led the study, said: "We know from previous research that dairying was an important part of many early farming economies, but what was a big surprise was the prevalence of dairy residues in Irish pots.  It looks to have been a very important food source".

Dr Smyth also said: "We know that settlements were small in the Irish Neolithic, usually one or two houses, so it’s likely that early farming groups had just one or two animals supporting the household with their products, which were perhaps part of a wider community herd"...

"Such results are even more significant given the fact that domesticated animals such as cattle, sheep and goats had to be physically shipped to Ireland as part of the process, as these animals were not native to the island"...

It just so happened that when this paper got published, I read an article in Irish Times about a paper written by UCD professor of archaeology Liam Downey and environmental archaeologist Dr Ingelise Stuijts about the history of "banbidh" (Irish for white foods) in Ireland...

They collated and analysed the data about food consumed in Ireland from the time of the earliest documentary sources up to the late 17th century...

They concluded that despite "extraordinarily high number of cattle in Ireland and an abundance of fish in the Irish waters, ordinary Irish people ate very little beef or fish".

Research had found that people lived primarily on dairy products. The Irish favourite food was butter. But there was also drinking milk, and buttermilk, and fresh curds, and old curds, and something called “real curds,” and whey mixed with water to make a refreshing sour drink...

In 1690, one British visitor to Ireland noted that the natives ate and drank milk "above twenty several sorts of ways and what is strangest for the most part love it best when sourest". 

He was referring to bainne clabair (thick milk), something between old milk and sour cream.

In the 12th c. vision of MacConglinne, he traveled to "the Land of Food" where he saw a delicious drink made up of "very thick milk, of milk not too thick, of milk of long thickness, of milk of medium thickness, of yellow bubbling milk, the swallowing of which needs chewing"...

Medieval British military advisors proposed that the best way to suppress Irish rebellions "would be just to kill all the cows because the majority of the population lived all summer on their cows’ milk"...

The second most important food were cereal products. The ordinary Irish people "ate tons of bread and porridge".

As for meet, it seems that "beef was most commonly consumed by the higher ranks of society, while pork was eaten by the common people..."

It is not surprising then that people so obsessed with butter, cheese and milk valued cattle above all else, to the point of being completely obsessed with them...

Fergus Kelly in his books "A Guide to Early Irish Law" and "Early Irish Farming" talks about cattle as currency in the early medieval Ireland. He gives the list of types of cattle used for payment and their relative value...

The basic unit was a milking cow, usually with her calf.  Different ancient texts give different exchange rates for different types, but they were all given as a fraction of the value of the milking cow. Example:

In-calf cow = two-thirds of a milking cow

Three-year-old heifer = half of milking cow

Two-year-old heifer = one third of milking cow

Yearling heifer = one quarter of milking cow

Yearling bullock = one eighth of milking cow

In one law text, there is an equal value given for a milking cow, a cumal (female slave), an ounce of silver and 2 sét (jewels)...

Cattle was so valued by the Irish, that Cattle raiding and plundering was an intrinsic part of the Old Irish (Scotish) way of life. To the extent that the most important old Irish epic is called Táin Bó Cúailnge which means "the driving-off , stealing, of cows of Cooley".

This epic which is more commonly known as "The cattle raid of Cooley" is a masterpiece of the early Irish literature. And as its name tells us it is a story about a cattle raid. A cattle raid ordered by the Queen Medb of Connacht who wanted to steal the champion bull of Ulster.

This lead to a bloody war between Ulster and Connacht which caused terrible devastation and many casualties on both sides. The most famous of these casualties was the Ulster hero Cú Chulainn, who died defending Ulster from the Connacht forces...

Táin Bó Cúailnge is traditionally set in the 1st century AD in an essentially pre-Christian "age of heroes". I think that the much better name for this period of the Irish history is the "age of armed shepherds"...

Shepherds had to be armed and skilled in battle if they wanted to protect their cattle from other armed shepherd who wanted to steal it. Eventually this must have lead to a formation of a warrior shepherd caste...

That this is probably what happened during the Irish Iron age can be seen from the emergence of the so called "cattle lords" or "cow lords" or "bóaire" in Irish. Bóaire was a freeman ranked below the noble grades but above the unfree...

He would own a share of land, which he inherited from members of his kin and which he could not sell without his kin's approval. He would normally have cattle given to him by a lord (the head of his clan) in exchange for entering into a clientship relationship...

The today Irish are still equally obsessed with milk and milk products...Especially butter...

Anyway, while I was reading all this, one question popped into my mind: is there anything special about the Irish, genetically, that makes them love milk so much?

After all, milk tolerance is not that common...Here is today's lactose tolerance distribution map. See how the maximum is in North Western Europe...Look how dark Ireland is...

So then I looked at the genetic maps and I noticed a strange correlation between R1b haplogroup distribution and the lactose tolerance distribution...I mean, look at Ireland...It's black...So I thought that these two things could be linked...

But then, while researching butter churns and cheese strains from Neolithic and Chalcholitic Central Europe, I came across the data that seems to point to the link between I2a and G2a haplogroups and the earliest cattle herding and milk processing cultures. I talked about this in my post "Milk, butter, cheese"...

Neolithic butter churn

Neolithic cheese strainer

I finished my above article still unsure whether it was I2a or R1b people who were the original milkmen...Well...Today I remembered this article about milk residues in Neolithic Irish cooking vessels...

All the vessels date to 4000-2500BC...Very very important...Why is this important? Because according to the latest genetic data, R1b people most likely didn't arrive to Ireland until mid 3rd millennium BC...

So who were the milking cow obsessed Neolithic Irish...I2a...Neolithic megalith builders...And milk drinkers...So is it possible that this is another indicator that the original lactose tolerance genes developed among the I2a people?

Did the Bronze, Iron, Medieval and Modern age R1b Irish get their love of milk and all things milky (and get the ability to process lactose) through mixing with the Neolithic I2a Irish? I think so...

Distribution of I2a and I2b haplogroups in Europe...

Baal from Cornwall

Bronze figure of god Baal dated to 14th-12th c. BC,  found in Ras Shamra (ancient Ugarit), located in today's Syria. 

In simple terms, bronze is the mixture of two metals: 

copper

and tin

When the Bronze Age arrived to the Eastern Mediterranean, the copper-rich region was able to quickly source copper at mines like Timna...

But where tin came from has been a lingering mystery for scholars. A new paper from an international team of researchers proposes a surprisingly faraway source,  Cornwall and Devon...

In a paper "Isotope systematics and chemical composition of tin ingots from Mochlos (Crete) and other Late Bronze Age sites in the eastern Mediterranean Sea: An ultimate key to tin provenance?" published in June , the authors analyze 27 tin ingots, or blocks, from five sites bordering the eastern Mediterranean Sea. 

Now this is very interesting indeed. The strong connection between Eastern Mediterranean and British Isles during the 2nd millennium BC could bring back the cultural diffusion theory as the explanation for all the similarities between far flung Bronze Age cultures...

Like for instance why the "Celtic" (actually specifically Insular Celtic) year has two seasons: winter (Nov-Apr) and summer (May-Oct). Climatically this makes no sense in Ireland and Britain. But it makes a lot of sense in Levant, where the climatic year is divided into two seasons: winter, wet and cool season (Nov - Apr) and summer, dry and hot season (May - Oct)...

We shouldn't really be surprised that there was a maritime link between Britain and Eastern Mediterranean during the late early 2nd millennium BC....The Irish Annals, oral histories written down in early medieval time, talk about the first metalworkers arrived to Ireland during mid 3rd millennium BC, from Black Sea, via Mediterranean, by boat...

And opened the oldest copper mine in Ireland, Ross Island copper mine, the remains of which are still visible very near to the place where the Irish Annals say these foreign metalworkers landed...

I talked about this in my post "Ór - Ireland's Gold"...More about Eastern Mediterranean - Irish links during the early Copper Age can be found in these articles about "Montenegrian tumuluses"...

And we have even earlier evidence that Mediterranean seafaring mining prospectors, which mined, sailed and traded all over Mediterranean seas during Neolithic, also landed in Ireland, during the late 4th millennium BC...

So the maritime link between the British Isles and Mediterranean was in existence for thousands of years before the first tin mine was opened in Cornwall...The cultural exchange that happened along this trading route is very difficult to measure as yet...But it could account for a lot of "coincidental cultural similarities", "parallel independent cultural developments"...

Crios - Tkanica

These are traditional Irish "crios" belts. They were woven by hand using six different shades of brightly coloured wool, colours and patterns varying from weaver to weaver.  

They were mostly worn by men, over the trousers, as it can be seen on this picture by David Shaw-Smyth.

They were made by hand using a kind of rudimentary "loom". This is actually just a piece of wood to which warp (base woollen threads) are attached. The piece of wood is then placed under the weaver's feet. The warp is then pulled and kept stretched by left hand while the right hand is used to weave the weft (cross, pattern threads). This 1950's tourist poster for Arran islands shows a man wearing traditional local clothes making a crios belt using such loom.

And this is "tkanica", traditional Serbian hand woven belt. The colours and patters vary greatly from village to village. See any similarity?  

This is a very good picture showing tkanica belts worn by both men and women as part of Central Serbian traditional costume. 

According to the ethnographic data, the belt had a practical purpose too. It was worn tight around the waist to protect the back and stomach from injuries (hernias) during heavy agricultural work. Maybe the Irish crios belts were worn for the same reason?

By the way these kind of woven belts are found in many other Slavic countries, not just Serbia. How common are they in Western Europe?

Umm ali

How easy or difficult is it for a single person to change people's culture? 

Umm Ali

Umm Ali is a famous Egyptian dessert. When well prepared, is one of the best - and more calorific - desserts you will ever feast on. Puff pastry, pistachios, almonds, pine nuts, condensed milk (or just full fat milk with cream) all cooked to a golden crisp in the oven. When the golden crisp is broken, it reveals lots of other melt-in-your-mouth yummy stuff added inside that forms a sweet bread-pudding-like milky mush. 

The name "Umm Ali" means "Mother of Ali" in Arabic. The true origin of the Umm Ali dessert is unknown. In Cairo, you may hear it is from Upper Egypt, while in Upper Egypt you may here that it is from Cairo. 

But believe it or not, the origin of this dessert could actually be Ireland. 

One of the legends relating the origin of this dessert says that the name Umm Ali comes from O'Malley. Mss O'Malley was an Irish nurse. She was in Egypt and caught the eye of the ruler, Khedive Ismail (Isma'il Pasha), who was the ruller of Egypt in the 19th century. 

Ismail was in love with all things European. So he fell in love with Mss O'Malley too. She became his mistress and made a bread and butter pudding for him, which he loved so much, that it became his favourite dessert. He asked his cooks to learn how to make it and told them that the name was O'Malley dessert. The dessert was served at the court, and from there spread through Egyptian upper classes who as it is always the case tried to imitate the court. The poor people then tried to imitate the rich people and soon everyone in Egypt was eating O'Malley dessert. 

The Egyptian people quickly transliterated the name into the closest Arabic thing that made sense to them, which was Umm Ali - the mother of Ali. They also then invented stories which served the purpose of explaining the strange name of the dessert. 

The first sory tells us that the first Mameluke (mercenary) to be made a Sultan of Egypt was al-Muizz Izz-ad-Din Aybak. Mamelukes were slaves bought as children and trained to be loyal soldiers. It was a practice started by the Abassid Caliphate (the third caliphate in the Islamic empire following the death of the Prophet Mohammad). He was married to an unnamed woman with whom he had a son called Ali, hence her name: Mother of Ali. He also had another wife and son. Women at the time were not allowed to rule the country, but in the absence of a Sultan, a mother could be the guardian to her son until he came of age to take over the Sultan title. In this case, Aybak died leaving the two women to fight out whose son would rule. Umm Ali hatched a plan with the handmaid of the second wife, and had her killed. To celebrate her victory, she made this sweet dessert (akin to sweet revenge) to share with everyone.

The second legend is a bit more believable. A Sultan was down in the Nile Valley hunting with some people when he suddenly became very hungry. He stopped into a small village asking for food. The villagers asked Umm Ali to prepare something for him, as she was known to be the best cook in the village. She whipped up this dessert and the Sultan loved it so much, he came back for seconds.

This is a great example how cultures and languages can be greatly affected by a small number of well-placed people. It also shows that historical linguistics has to be a multidisciplinary study if it wants to be successful in discovering root meanings of words. It also gives a great example of linguistic absorption by closest transliteration. This is a process in which foreign names, particularly toponimes, hidronimes, get transliterated to the closest thing that makes sense in the language of the population living in the area. What happened in Ireland with Gaelic toponyms and hydronyms after the arrival of the English is a great example of this process. The same goes for Serbian toponyms and hydronyms in Kosovo and Albania after Albanians took over old Serbian territories.  

Anyway, enough science, back to sweets. 

The popularity of the O'Malley dish in Egypt is partially due to its fanciness, partially due to its deliciousness, and partially due to the fact that the recipe is extremely simple and that making of this dessert is very cheap. The main ingredients for this dessert with bread or filo pastry, milk, dates or other dried fruit and nuts, which are all staple Egyptian that can be afforded to anyone. 

Here is one way to make O'Malley (Umm Ali) bread and butter pudding:

* 6 sheets of filo (or puff pastry, pancakes, or bread)

* 6-8 tablespoons of butter, melted

* 2/3 cup black or golden raisins

* 1 cup mixed whole or slivered blanched almonds, chopped hazelnuts and chopped pistachios

* 5 cups whole milk

* 1 cups heavy cream

* - 2/3 cup sugar

* 1-2 teaspoons cinnamon (optional)

Keep the sheets of filo in a pile, covered with a damp towel to keep them from drying out. Brush each one with melted butter and place them on top of each other on a buttered baking sheet.

But the buttered filo sheets in a preheated 3500F oven for about 10 minutes, until they are crisp and the top ones are slightly colored.

When cool enough to handle, crush the pastry with your hands into pieces into a baking dish, sprinkling the nuts and raisins between the layers.

Bring the milk and cream to a boil in a pan with the sugar and pour over the pastry. Sprinkle, if you like, with the cinnamon and return to the oven. Raise the heat to 4250F and bake for about 20-30 minutes, until slightly golden.

Serve hot. Serves 8.

Enjoy your Umm Ali, or to be more precise O’Malley :)

I(r)celand

St Brendan and his "team"

Both Ireland and Northern Ireland have bombed out of the EURO 2016. But if you are Irish, there is another Irish team still in competition which you can support: Iceland.

"eee what?" I can hear you say... Let me explain:

If you have watched the EURO 2016, you must have seen Icelandic team and supporters doing their amazing "Viking battle chant". 

This "Viking battle chant" which has become synonymous with the Icelandic fans at EURO 2016 has become quite a world sensation. But believe or not this chant has nothing to do with the Vikings. It originated in Scotland. Fans of Stjarnan, a Reykjavik based team, fell in love with the chant during a game they played in Motherwell in 2014. The chant has apparently been performed on the terraces at Motherwell Fir Park stadium for years. The Stjarnan supporters adopted the chant as their own and later it was also adopted by the Icelandic national team supporters. They started performing it during the EURO 2016 qualifying campaign and it has since became firmly associated with the Icelandic team. This is a great example of a cultural transfer. 

But this is not the only thing "Vikings" picked up in Scotland and Ireland and took with them to Iceland. 

When the settlement of Iceland got underway some time around 800AD, it seems that there were a lot of Gaelic people among the original settlers. Genetic analysis has shown that a quarter of the men and up to half of the women among the founding population would have been of "Gaelic" origin. 

The study included 181 Icelanders, 233 Scandinavians and 283 "Gaels" from Ireland and Scotland. "Gaelic" was the preferred term in the study, given the fact that the Vikings in 800AD populated both eastern Ireland and also the Western Isles of Scotland. These territories were at that time settled and controlled by the Irish kingdom of Dál Riata. 

The study showed that between 20 and 25 per cent of Icelandic founding males had Gaelic ancestry, with the remainder having Norse ancestry. These findings match up with earlier study which looked at mitocondrial DNA in the women from the same population groups. The mitocondrial data showed that over a half of Iceland's founding females were of Gaelic ancestry.

What we don't know is who these Gaelic people were and how they ended up in Iceland. 

Even though in some cases, the whole established Viking family groups arrived and settled in Ireland and Scotland, most of the time the Vikings bands were ad hoc armies consisting of young men. It is not inconceivable that these young men who had come over from Scandinavia and lived for a time in the British Isles would have taken local wives, and even entered into alliances with their Gaelic in-laws. When for what ever reason some of these Vikings decided to leave the British isles around 800 AD and settle in Iceland, they took their wives with them. They could have even been joined by some of their Irish male in-laws and their families. 

However some of these Gaelic people who ended up in Iceland might have been taken away against their will as it is known that Vikings engaged in slave trade and took away a significant number of slaves from Gaelic territories in Ireland and Scotland. One of the most comprehensive works on the subject of the Irish in Iceland is Gaelic influence in Iceland by Gísli Sigurdsson. Sigurdsson suggests that slaves may have comprised as much as 30–40% of the population. 

But there is something very interesting about the Viking colonization of Iceland. 

Upon the demise of the Roman Empire and the subsequent spread of Christianity across Europe, monks and holy men increasingly undertook perilous sea voyages to remote uncharted waters. These expeditions could have been pilgrimages of sorts, to test their belief in the Lord.  Well that is one explanation. Another one was that the Irish Christian monks followed their kinsmen to the newly discovered lands....

The most famous of these reputed journeys is that of the legendary St Brendan. 

Saint Brendan of Clonfert (c. 484 – c. 577) called "the Navigator", "the Voyager", "the Anchorite", or "the Bold", is one of the early Irish monastic saints. He was one of the Twelve Apostles of Ireland. He is most famous for his legendary quest to the "Isle of the Blessed," also called Saint Brendan's Island. 

The first mention of Brendan occurs in Adamnan's Vita Sancti Columbae, written between 679 and 704. But the first notice of him as a seafarer appears in the ninth century Martyrology of Tallaght. The earliest full version of "The Voyage of Saint Brendan" was recorded around AD 900. In it we read that on the Kerry coast, he built a currach-like boat of wattle, covered it with hides tanned in oak bark softened with butter, set up a mast and a sail. He and a small group of monks fasted for forty days, and after a prayer upon the shore, embarked on their voyage to find the Isle of the Blessed. On their way they pass by the land where "great demons threw down lumps of fiery slag from an island with rivers of gold fire” and “great crystal pillars." Many now believe these to be references to the volcanic activity around Iceland, and to icebergs.

While the story is often assumed to be a religious allegory, there has been considerable discussion as to whether the legends are based on actual events. Over the years there have been many interpretations of the possible geographical position of Saint Brendan's Island of the Blessed. Today the most popular theory is that St Brendan actually discovered America, sailing there via Iceland and Greenland. 

 The Voyage of Saint Brendan belongs to the type of Old Irish stories known as "immram" (Irish navigational story). An immram is a story concerning a hero's sea journey to the Otherworld (see Tír na nÓg and Mag Mell). They were all written in the Christian era. No surprise here as the Irish only had oral tradition before the Christian monks started writing it down. 

But how come it was the Irish who in the Early medieval time developed the "Sea navigation stories"? Well because at that time, the Irish ruled the north western seas. They invaded and settled Western Scotland and gave it its name. The name Scotland comes "Scoti" which was the old name for the Irish. They invaded and settled Northern Wales, giving the name to the Llŷn Peninsula which was named after one of the Irish tribes, the Laigin. 


You can't invade, settle and hold the coastal areas unless you are a maritime culture a maritime power. You can't sail the northern seas around the British isles unless you are an accomplished mariner in a very very good boat. And the Irish seem to have in the early Medieval time been accomplished mariners in very good boats. This explains why the maritime voyage stories were at that time very popular in Ireland. 

This forgotten Irish maritime culture was covered in a great TV series and book called "Atlantean Irish" made by Irish film maker Bob Quinn. The films and book proposed that the Irish, or at least some of the Irish, were part of a common 'Atlantean' maritime culture that includes the western seaboard of Europe and North Africa.

Official history tells us that there is no reliable evidence to indicate that Brendan ever reached Iceland, Greenland or America. But it is interesting that the route Iceland, Greenland, Newfoundland is the exact route which we know Vikings took in 10th century or maybe even in the 9th century when they discovered America. 

Is it possible that the Viking discovery of Iceland, Greenland and Newfoundland was actually a rediscovery prompted by the stories about St. Brendan's voyage that the Vikings heard from their Irish wives and in-laws before 800 AD? Did Vikings then in the time of need decide to follow the described route and check for themselves what lies out west? 

Let's see. 

Around 800 AD Vikings with their Irish wives, in-laws and slaves sailed from Ireland to Iceland and colonized it. 

But, there is a popular story in Iceland which says that the first humans who set the foot on the shores and volcanic terrain of Iceland were Christian monks from the north-west of Ireland, in the eighth century. The story is based on one written source, the Islendingabok (‘Book of the Islanders’) by  Ari Þorgilsson, written between 1122 and 1133, about 250 years after the first Norse settlements. Even in such established works as The history of Iceland by Gunnar Karlsson the arrival of the monks has become accepted history. Apparently the monks, having initially discovered a stable sea route from Ireland to Iceland, made repeated return journeys over the course of several decades until the arrival of the first Norse settlers. 

There is little to suggest that these monks established any permanent settlements in Iceland. Conclusive archaeological evidence of the presence of the Irish monks has been unearthed on the remote Orkney, Shetland Islands, and now I am discovering, in Iceland. I want to thank @ninnythebear for alerting me to the article "Early Christian Irish and Scots 'First Footers' in Iceland". In it, we can read about the artificial caves at Seljaland in southern Iceland. 

These man-made caves at Seljaland are Christian hermitages, with a large number of crosses surviving today to mark the cave walls. 

The remains found in the caves confirm that human activity in this area predates early Viking settlements by almost a century. 

And so the story about the Irish monks being the first colonizers of Iceland is not under question any more...

But it is interesting that the first mention of St. Brendan as the "Navigator" appears in the 9th century. The same century when the colonization of Iceland begins. The same century when the alleged discovery of Iceland by the Irish monks, which was described in the Icelandic saga, takes place. The first full description of St Brendan's "alleged" voyage to America, via Iceland and Greenland then appears in the manuscript published around 900 AD. And right after that Vikings from Iceland, who came from Ireland following St Brendan's route, sail westward, again following St Brendan's route, and "discover" Greenland and Newfoundland. 

Strange how it all fits together, don't you think?

Whatever about the uncertainties surrounding the Gaelic arrivals of the eighth century, their presence in the ninth century Iceland is beyond question. The presence of Gaelic people among the first arrivals in Iceland is confirmed by numerous written references in both the Book of Settlements and the Book of Icelanders. In the former is found a comprehensive list of 400 names, of which at least 60 are distinctly Gaelic. 

Those of Gaelic origin integrated quickly into what became essentially a Norse culture. So what, beyond genetics, is the legacy of the Gaelic presence in Iceland? 

Well, as I said already the archaeological evidence is pretty slim. The same could also be said in relation to the Icelandic language. According to Sigurdsson, the limited number of borrowed words may be explained by the fact that the "Gaels did not contribute any new work skills or crafts, carrying their own vocabulary into the mainly Norse controlled society", coupled with the fact that "the language of the slaves was probably not widely spoken by their masters". 

But this is a bit dismissive when we know that it is in the Icelandic literature where we find the most important Gaelic legacy in Iceland. 

Icelandic oral and written traditions of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were completely unique development in the Nordic world. There have been many theories which aimed to explain this phenomenon, but the one accepted by most British and Irish historians, and indeed Sigurdsson himself, says that the influence of the Gaelic presence in Iceland is a more plausible explanation for the emergence of the Icelandic sagas tradition. In the Gaelic world, oral tradition and the writing of the sagas in the vernacular was highly developed. In fact, Iceland and Ireland were the only countries in Western Europe where sagas of this kind were written down. There are undeniably striking resemblances in the literary output of Iceland and Ireland during the 12th and 13th century not just in form but in content too. In both traditions we find leprechaun-like creatures, Gaelic team game of hurling and boy stalwart heroes like Cú Chulainn from Irish sagas, and Starkaðr (Strong man) from the Icelandic Fornaldarsogur sagas, popular in the early fourteenth century. Both characters in their respective sagas at one point lie naked in the snow searching their clothes for lice. 

The Gaelic influence is even more obvious when we look at the Icelandic family sagas. Sigurdsson claims that the sagas that come from the west of Island have a more powerful Gaelic element than others, which could be explained by the stronger Gaelic presence in this area. How come? The western area of Iceland would have been the exact place where a bout coming from Ireland would have landed. And if the Irish settled permanently on Iceland, that would have been the exact place where they would have done so...Interesting...

Anyway, the most prominent example of this trend is the saga of the people of Laxardal (Laxdæla saga). In this tale one of the characters, Hoskuldr, obtains a slave woman from Norway who turns out to be Melkorka, daughter of a prominent Irish king. Retaining her native Gaelic language, she secretly passes it on to her son Ólafr, who later travels to Ireland to renew family ties and, despite his lowly slave origins, marries well. His son Kjartan becomes the main male hero of the Laxdæla saga. Parallels with the character of Cú Chulainn are again in evidence in a number of the family sagas. Some of his boyhood deeds are mirrored by the character of Kafli in the Kjalnesing saga, and the character of Egil in Egil’s saga. Parts of these sagas, particularly in the case of Laxdæla saga, tend to have a more colourful, exaggerated style with greater attention to detail, perhaps reflecting the Gaelic predilection for such literary affectations.

Slaves alone could have hardly been able to exert such cultural influence. This points to these possibilities:

1. The Irish sailors who discovered Iceland during the early medieval time actually settled in the west of Iceland. They eventually mixed with the Norse settlers who came from the East and who settled the eastern coast of Iceland. 
2. The Viking gang that arrived to Iceland from Ireland around 800 AD was a mixed Norse Irish clan with possibly slaves from other Irish clans. Irish practiced slavery long before Norse arrived. Remember how they "obtained" St Patrick from Wales? Were Irish colonies still on Iceland at that time? Were these people joining their kin in Iceland, or reclaiming the ancestral land?

That kind of mix could have exerted the cultural influence we find in the development of the Icelandic sagas. 

So, let me recapitulate:

1. Iceland was discovered and first colonized by the Irish monks.

2. It was then settled by the mix of Norse and Irish

3. These Irish contributed greatly to the genetics and culture of Iceland 

And so, on Sunday, when Iceland go on the pitch to play France, Irish can stand up and proudly shout:

Come on I(r)celand !!!

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..