Cursuswalker wrote:
It occurs to me that vegetation must have burned in such places many many times.
Therefore if the megalithic remains.......remain, maybe the heat exposure doesn't last that long as the fire passes by, preventing serious heat exposure as might happen if fuel were burned ON the megaliths.
One of the problems with the Wicklow Mountains is that they have a deep layer of peat over them. First thoughts would be that this would protect any buried archaeology, but it doesn't. Peat burns*. It burns for a very long time. Fires can 'live' under the peat for weeks, smoldering away and then flare up if they reach the surface. Obviously, if this happens around a buried monument the heat generated inside the peat over such a period can be devastating.
Having said that, many of the monuments we do know about were only exposed after a good moorland fire, the Piperstown complex being a good example.
*Not the guy with fat lips!
