| For my presentation today, I'm going to talk about the Ceide Fields in the northwest of Ireland, |
| one of the largest Neolithic sites in the world. |
| I recently visited this site |
| and observed the work that is currently being done by a team of archaeologists there. |
| The site was first discovered in the 1930s |
| by a local teacher, Patrick Caulfield. |
| He noticed that when local people were digging in the bog, |
| they were constantly hitting against what seemed to be rows of stones. |
| He realised that these must be walls |
| and that they must be thousands of years old for them to predate the bog which subsequently grew over them. |
| He wrote to the National Museum in Dublin to ask them to investigate, |
| but no one took him seriously. |
| It wasn't until 40 years later, |
| when Patrick Caulfield's son Seamus, who had become an archaeologist by then, began to explore further. |
| He inserted iron probes into the bog to map the formation of the stones, |
| a traditional method which local people had always used for finding fuel buried in the bog for thousands of years. |
| Carbon dating later proved that the site was over 5,000 years old |
| and was the largest Neolithic site in Ireland. |
| Thanks to the bog which covers the area, |
| the remains of the settlement at Ceide Fields, which is over 5,000 years old, |
| are extremely well-preserved. |
| A bog is 90% water; |
| its soil is so saturated that when the grasses and heathers that grow on its surface die, |
| they don't fully decay but accumulate in layers. |
| Objects remain so well preserved in these conditions |
| because of the acidity of the peat and the deficiency of oxygen. |
| At least 175 days of rain a year are required for this to happen; |
| this part of Ireland gets an average of 225 days. |
| The Neolithic farmers at Ceide would have enjoyed several centuries of relative peace and stability. |
| Neolithic farmers generally lived in larger communities than their predecessors, |
| with a number of houses built around a community building. |
| As they lived in permanent settlements, |
| Neolithic farmers were able to build bigger houses. |
| These weren't round as people often assume, |
| but rectangular with a small hole in the roof that allowed smoke to escape. |
| This is one of many innovations |
| and indicates that the Neolithic farmers were the first people to cook indoors. |
| Another new technology that Neolithic settlers brought to Ireland was pottery. |
| Fragments of Neolithic pots have been found in Ceide and elsewhere in Ireland. |
| The pots were used for many things; |
| as well as for storing food, |
| pots were filled with a small amount of fat |
| and when this was set alight, they served as lamps. |
| It's thought that the Ceide Fields were mainly used as paddocks for animals to graze in. |
| Evidence from the Ceide Fields suggests that each plot of land was of a suitable size to sustain an extended family. |
| They may have used a system of rotational grazing |
| in order to prevent over-grazing |
| and to allow for plant recovery and regrowth. |
| This must've been a year-round activity |
| as no structures have been found which would have been used to shelter animals in the winter. |
| However, archaeologists believe that this way of life at Ceide ceased abruptly. |
| Why was this? |
| Well, several factors may have contributed to the changing circumstances. |
| The soil would have become less productive and led to the abandonment of farming. |
| The crop rotation system was partly responsible for this |
| as it would have been very intensive and was not sustainable. |
| But there were also climatic pressures too. |
| The farmers at Ceide would have enjoyed a relatively dry period, |
| but this began to change |
| and the conditions became wetter as there was a lot more rain. |
| It was these conditions that encouraged the bog to form over the area which survives today. |
| So now I'd like to show you... |