The Bronze Age in Ireland

Introduction

This book deals with the Bronze Age principally from the point of view of the implements and weapons in use in Ireland during that period. It is unnecessary to state that the materials for writing anything like a full account of the civilization or political organization during the Bronze Age do not exist; and even the ethnological affinities of the dominant race that inhabited Ireland during this period are doubtful. All that can be said is that there was apparently no gap between the end of the Neolithic Period and the transitional Copper to Bronze Period. Stone weapons continued in use side by side with those of copper and bronze; and the form of the former was sometimes actually influenced by those of the latter.

There has been so little scientific excavation in Ireland that the question as to the early burial-customs is surrounded with difficulty; such evidence as there is points to cremation having been practised early, as was also the case in Great Britain. Instances show that the two rites of inhumation and cremation were practised side by side.

In the cairn excavated on Belmore Mountain, County Fermanagh, both burnt and unburnt interments were found with pottery and other objects of early Bronze-Age type.[1] At a recent excavation near Naas, County Kildare, a burnt interment was discovered in a cist, the remains being associated with a wrist-bracer and remains of pottery.[2] In the fine series of cairns on Carrowkeel Mountain, County Sligo, burnt and unburnt interments were found associated with pottery, bone implements, and stone beads.[3] At Annaghkeen, County Galway, a cremated burial was discovered in a cist associated with pottery and a small bronze knife-dagger and awl.[4]

The Hon. John Abercromby gives a list of food-vessels found with cremated burials in Ireland, and to these must be added a food-vessel of early type found in 1912 in a quarry at Crumlin, County Dublin. It must, however, be left for future excavations to decide many questions to which at present no answer, or only a doubtful one, can be given. This, however, is certain-Ireland during the Bronze Age was not isolated, but stood in direct communication with the Continent. ?gean and Scandinavian influences can be detected in the great tumuli of the New Grange group[5]; and Iberian influence is discernible in some of the later types of bronze implements. Ireland, as will be shown in the chapters dealing directly with the gold objects, was, during the Bronze Age, a kind of western El Dorado, owing to her great richness in gold; Irish gold ornaments have been found both on the Continent and in Scandinavia; while Scandinavian amber has been found in Ireland. As will be seen on p. 81, the Bronze-Age people were acquainted with the art of weaving; and fine ornaments of horse-hair were sometimes used. The art of making pottery by hand was carried to a high degree of excellence. Shaving must have been fairly common, judging by the number of bronze razors found. We shall find evidence further on in this work to show that corn was probably grown and agriculture fairly advanced.

The great tumuli at New Grange and the lesser ones at Carrowkeel show that the art of building was well developed, and that the religious ideals of the people had attained a certain fixed form. What the actual dwellings occupied by the people were we cannot say; but it is probable that many of the promontory-forts and some at least of the larger cashels and ring-forts date back to this period. There remain, however, many questions which, as we have said, must be kept over for future investigations.

The Chronology of the Irish Bronze Age

Some discussion as to the absolute chronology of the Bronze Age in Ireland will, no doubt, be expected, though any attempts to give actual dates can only be approximate; the succession of types is really of considerably more importance than the actual date, as such a succession enables objects, finds, and interments to be arranged in a progressive series, and shows the general trend of advance and culture. The doyen of prehistoric arch?ology, Dr. Oscar Montelius, of Stockholm, has been the pioneer of the study of the prehistoric chronology of Europe, his chronology of the Bronze Age in Scandinavia having been published as far back as 1885. Since then he has published the results of his studies of the Bronze-Age chronologies of Greece and Italy, and of France, Belgium, South Germany, and Switzerland. More recently (1908) he has put forward the chronology of the British Islands in a notable memoir published in Arch?ologia. It may be mentioned that Dr. Montelius visited Ireland some years ago, and speaks with the greater authority as having personally examined the actual Irish evidence.

In this memoir Dr. Montelius divides the Bronze Age of Great Britain and Ireland into five periods, and includes in his first period the transitional time when copper was in use (Copper Period), which he places at from the middle of the third to the beginning of the second millennium b.c. Now, though the division of the Irish Bronze Age into five periods may be accepted, we should hardly care to place the first period as early as Dr. Montelius suggests; and without going into the question of the time at which the period commenced, we might take the period of its ending at from about 2000-1800 b.c. In this period would be included the flat copper celts of early form, copied from the stone celts of the preceding Neolithic Period, some few small, flat knife-daggers of copper, and the earliest of the halberds. Stone implements, no doubt, remained largely in use; and the very finely decorated hammer-axes probably belong to this period.

It is possible that gold-which, on account of its colour and appearance on the surface of the ground, must have been one of the metals first noticed and made use of in prehistoric times-was used for making ornaments at this period, or possibly, as Prof. Gowland suggests, may have been hammered into ornaments even during the preceding Neolithic Age.[6] There is, however, no gold object in the National Collection which we should care to place so early.

The second division of the Bronze Age (the first period of the true Bronze Age) would fall between 1800 and 1500 b.c.; and in it would be included, as the principal types, the flat bronze celts-including those with the edge much wider than the blade-flanged celts, small bronze daggers, the later halberds, jet buttons with conical perforations, and the early types of jet necklaces, and probably the gold lunul?.

The third period might be placed at from 1500 to 1250 b.c., and the principal types falling within it are flanged celts with stop-ridges, tanged spear-heads, and larger dagger-blades, sometimes with bronze handles.

The fourth period, which was long, and during which a considerable development takes place, might be placed at from 1280 to 900 b.c. This period includes the later type of celts with increased stop-ridge and flanges (palstaves), and some of the earlier forms of socketed celts, long rapiers, the earlier type of leaf-shaped swords, and the looped and leaf-shaped spear-heads, gold torcs, and possibly some of the bronze fibul?, and sickles without sockets; the disk-headed pins and bronze razors may be placed either at the end of this time or the beginning of the next period. In this period must also be placed the building of the great tumuli of the New Grange group.

The fifth division-also a long one-would go from 900 to about 350 b.c., at which time iron weapons were probably coming into general use in Ireland. In this period would fall the socketed celts, including the latest type, which takes a form not uncommon among iron or steel axes, the later bronze swords with notches below the blades, bronze sword-chapes, the socketed sickles, probably some of the more highly ornamented bronze spears with apertures in the blades, the bronze trumpets, the gold fibul?, and gold gorgets. It must be remembered that the Continental Hallstatt period is not at present well represented in Great Britain and Ireland, and though, under Hallstatt influence, certain Continental Iron-Age types such as bronze caldrons, trumpets, round shields, &c., found their way into Ireland, we cannot as yet definitely separate this period from the end of the Bronze Age.

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