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Arbor Low

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I was just there. Doesn't say much does it. That site could be so good if they just pressed a few more keys when adding an entry!

"The northern area adjacent to Trench 2 was characterised by a relatively sterile sandy silt (0.1m in thickness) which contained few artefacts. However within the silt was a small group of cattle bones C14 dated to 5510 BP. Towards the base a small cache of polished stone axes was recovered (5 axes were found)."

The odd part is 'towards the base', not 'at the base'.

I'm also curious to know why 3500 bce is considered by some to be before the Neolithic, when Ireland's Neolithic was 2000 years old by then.

Arse! Lost my internet connex and didn't think it had posted first time ...

Just had one of those weird moments, when something you were discussing a couple of days ago suddenly appears unexpectedly. This is from my current read, Barry Cunliffes excellent 'Facing the Sea'
"Many of the foraging communities of Ireland will have continued their tradition of food-gathering activities long after food-production techniques of the neolithic period had been introduced, at Ferriters Cove on the Dingle Peninsular, a small community managed to eke out a living clinging on the cliff edge. They hunted pig, caught fish by long line or net, and collected molluscs, mainly limpets, but they were in contact, however distant, with farmers who reared cattle and made polished stone axes. Perhaps they were living in some form of symbiotic relationshio with these settled agriculturalists, but it is equally possible that the foraging community was now beginning to adopt aspects of the neolithic food-producing package which was being established at this time along the Atlantic seaways".