Drumirril, Co. Monaghan | Forum — The Modern Antiquarian

FourWinds Jan 27, 2004 19:21:35

I will add this as a news item in more detail when I have chance, but I thought I'd mention this here quickly, because it goes some way to answering an often asked question: How do you date rock-art?

I was at Drumirril in Monaghan at the weekend, where there are a whole wodge of panels with over 70 cup and ring motifs in total. The farmer would only give me directions to one panel :-(

Anyway, he mentioned that a team had been surveying the area (for the first time ever) over the summer and had also dug some test trenches aound the carvings. They found stuff datable to the early Neolithic! as well as some later stuff.

An article in the winter 2003 Archaeology Ireland (which I only got today) features a mini write-up about the dig, but it's not amazing. It does mention, however, an article in the Cambridge Archaeological Journal 1 (1998) that also proposes Neolithic dates for a lot of UK & Irish rock art.

TomBo Jan 28, 2004 05:44:47

Replying to FourWinds

Does that show that the rock art is neolithic, though? It clearly demonstrates that the stone had significance in the early neolithic but the rock art may have come later, don't you think.

My own view, of course, is that cup-marks were made by tiny flying saucers in the Jurassic, and that this is why these stones caught our early neolithic ancestors' eyes.

BlueGloves Jan 28, 2004 07:56:23

Replying to FourWinds

Those rocks are amazing - one of my contributions can be the 'quack' explanations of why archaeologists &c argue so much - 'Crab' in the horoscope.

Try making a megalithic inch ruler - anything would be neater than this one http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/post/21366 - and fitting it to those panels another time. I think the unit is 0.814 imperial inches. For some reason or other I suspect that the Megalithic Inch was used in the Neolithic and we changed units with the Beaker People.

I used to be told that Global Warming was nonsense (in 1980) - all I'm saying is 'please try it'.