Céide Fields

Near Enniscrone, across the county line in Mayo, there is a remarkable neolithic site containing the oldest known stone-walled fields in the world, dating back nearly 6,000 years. The site itself is astonishing in its bleakness and the museum is equally astonishing for its beauty.

The findings, which are essentially an extensive series of stone walls and monoliths, are considered a major archeological find in that their age, location, scope, and scale have all added significantly to the knowledge of how early humans interacted and has added new perspective to the perception of our Stone Age ancestors.

A farmer out cutting peat decades ago noted the strange regularity of the stones he uncovered in the bog fields. Here's how Wiki tells the story:

"The discovery of the Céide Fields originally began in the 1930s when a local man, schoolteacher Patrick Caulfield, noticed piles of stones which were uncovered as he cut away turf for fuel. In these piles he saw some design which could not have been haphazard. Caulfield noted that the stones had to have been placed by people, because their configuration was clearly unnatural and deliberate. Furthermore, they were positioned below the bog, which meant they were there before the bog developed, implying a very ancient origin. The unraveling of the true significance of this discovery did not begin for another forty years when Patrick's son, Seamus, having studied Archaeology, began to investigate further. Investigations revealed a complex of fields, houses and megalithic tombs concealed by the growth of blanket bogs over the course of many centuries."

The land that you now see as all bog was forested when the people who built the stone walls arrived. They removed the forests in an effort to create arable land. The climate was several degrees warmer in those days, so the notion was not so very far fetched that they could build an agricultural community near the sea. However, by taking down the forests, the long term impact was the development of bog fields, and the land became untenable for agriculture.

The theory is that the forest canopy created an environment where rain did not reach the ground (it was absorbed by the canopy, or evaporated back into the environment). By deforesting the area, the early settlers removed the barrier that kept the land from becoming bog.

Interesting.

And that's all for Ireland. We headed off to the US after this for some sun, fun and visiting with friends and family.

 

Comments

[Monica]

Interesting!

[Debbie Hanson]

What Monica said.....I find this very interesting. Why did they build the stone walls?

[Ellen]

Sources seem speculative, but it is possible it was to divide fields for agriculture and animals. Also possible it was to divide plots of land; one assumes the walls were built from stones that were removed from the soil, making it easier to till, but that's my conjecture based on knowledge of early East Coast US farming!