Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T12:04:53.216Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

From Foraging to Food Production in South-east Ireland: Some Lithic Evidence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 February 2014

Jane D. Peterson
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85287–2402, USA

Extract

Current models for the transition from foraging to food production in Ireland describe a range of possibilities concerning the roles played by indigenous populations, the length of overlap between the adaptive systems and the potential influence of one group on the other. For example, Woodman views Mesolithic populations as passive and temporally discrete for the most part (1976; 1978c; 1987). Alternatively, Aalen (1978) sees the potential for Mesolithic groups exerting a significant influence on the Neolithic populations. In Case's model, Neolithic lifeways are introduced fully formed into Ireland, with little or no input from indigenous groups (1969; 1976).

All three agree that colonists initiated the transition on the island. Expanding these models and outlining expectations based on them provides the baseline against which the data from Waterford will be measured.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1990

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aalen, F. H. A. 1978. Man and the Landscape in Ireland. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Ammerman, A.J. 1989. On the Neolithic transition in Europe: a comment on Zvelebil and Zvelebil. Antiquity 63, 162–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
ApSimon, A. 1976. Ballynagilly and the beginning and end of the Irish Neolithic. In DeLaet, S. J. (ed.), Acculturation and Continuity in Atlantic Europe, 1530. Ghent: De Tempel.Google Scholar
Binford, L. R. 1980. Willow smoke and dogs' tails: hunter-gatherer settlement systems and archaeological site formation. American Antiquity 45, 420.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Breuil, H. and Lander, R. 1965. The Men of the Old Stone Age. Paris.Google Scholar
Case, H. J. 1969. Settlement patterns in the north Irish Neolithic. Ulster Journal of Archaeology 32, 327.Google Scholar
Case, H.J. 1976. Acculturation and the Earlier Neolithic in western Europe. In DeLaet, S.J. (ed.), Acculturation and Continuity in Atlantic Europe, 4558. Ghent: De Tempel.Google Scholar
Clark, G. A. 1983. The Asturian of Cantabria. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.Google Scholar
Clark, G. A. 1987. From the Mousterian to the metal ages. In Soffer, O. (ed.), The Pleistocene Old World, 293315. New York: Plenum.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crabtree, D.E. 1973. Experiments in replicating Hohokam Points. Tebiwa 16, 1045.Google Scholar
Dennell, R. 1985. The Hunter-gatherer/agricultural frontier in prehistoric temperate Europe. In Green, S. and Perlman, S. M. (eds), Archaeology of Boundaries and Frontiers, 113–40. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Driskell, B. N. 1986. The Chipped Stone Tool Production/Use Cycle. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, International Series 305.Google Scholar
Eogan, G. 1963. A Neolithic habitation site and megalithic tomb in Townleyhall townland, Co. Louth. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquarians in Ireland 93, 3781.Google Scholar
Foley, R. 1981. A model of regional archaeological structure. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 47, 117.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, S. J. in press. Foragers and Farmers on the Prehistoric Irish Frontier. In Gregg, S. (ed.), Between Bands and States. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.Google Scholar
Green, S.J. and Zvelebil, M. 1990. The Mesolithic colonization and agricultural transition of South-east Ireland. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Socity 56, 5788.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hayden, B. 1980. Confusion in the bipolar world. Lithic Technology 9, 27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kelly, R. L. 1988. The three sides of a biface. American Antiquity 53 (4), 717–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewarch, D. E. and O'Brien, M. J. 1981. The expanding role of surface assemblages in archaeological research. In Schiffer, M. (ed.), Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory, 297333. New York: Academic Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacDonald, G. F. 1965. Debert: A Paleo-Indian Site in Central Nova Scotia. Anthropology Papers, National Museum of Canada 16.Google Scholar
Morrison, A. 1980. Early Man in Britain and Ireland. New York: St. Martins.Google Scholar
Parry, W. S. and Kelly, R. L. 1987. Expedient core technology and sedentism. In Johnson, S. K. and Morrow, C. A. (eds), The Organization of Core Technology, 285304. New York: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Peterson, J. D. 1988. The Bally Lough Archaeological Project: Analysis of the Lithic Collections from 1986–1987. Master's Thesis. Phoenix: Arizona State University.Google Scholar
Price, T. D. and Brinch Peterson, E. 1987. A Mesolithic camp in Denmark. Scientific American 256, 112–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rowley-Conwy, P. 1986. Between cave painters and crop planters: aspects of the temperate European Mesolithic. In Zvelebil, M. (ed.), Hunters in Transition, 1732. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Thomas, J. 1988. Neolithic explanations revisited: the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition in Britain and South Scandinavia. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 55, 5966.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tixier, J. 1974. Glossary for the description of stone tools. Newsletter of Lithic Technology, Special Publication no. 1.Google Scholar
Welinder, S. 1978. Disappearance of a hunting-gathering economy. In Gramsch, B. (ed.), Mesolithikum in Europa, 151–64. Berlin: VEB Deutscher Verlag.Google Scholar
Woodman, P. C. 1974. Settlement patterns of the Irish Mesolithic. Ulster Journal of Archaeology 36–7, 116.Google Scholar
Woodman, P. C. 1976. The Irish Mesolithic/Neolithic transition. In DeLaet, S. J. (ed.), Acculturation and Continuity in Atlantic Europe, 296307. Ghent: De Tempel.Google Scholar
Woodman, P. C. 1978a. A reappraisal of the Manx Mesolithic. In Davey, P. (ed.), Man and Environment in the Isle of Man, 119–39. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, British Series 54.Google Scholar
Woodman, P. C. 1978b. The Mesolithic in Ireland. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, British Series 58.Google Scholar
Woodman, P. C. 1978c. Problems of Mesolithic survival in Ireland. In Gramsch, B. (ed.), Mesolithikum in Europa, 201–10. Berlin, VEB Deutscher Verlag.Google Scholar
Woodman, P. C. 1979. Problems of flint utilization within eastern Ireland. In Proceedings of the Third International Symposium on Flint, 113–15. Maastricht: Nederlandse Geologische Vereniging.Google Scholar
Woodman, P. C. 1981. A Mesolithic camp in Ireland. Scientific American 245, 120–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woodman, P. C. 1985. Prehistoric settlement and environment. In Edwards, K.J. and Warren, W. P. (eds), The Quaternary History of Ireland, 251–75. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Woodman, P. C. 1986. Problems in the colonization of Ireland. Ulster Journal of Archaeology 49, 717.Google Scholar
Woodman, P. C. 1987. The impact of resource availability on lithic industrial traditions in prehistoric Ireland. In Rowley-Conwy, P., Zvelebil, M. and Blankholm, H. P. (eds), Mesolithic Northwest Europe: Recent Trends, 138–49. Sheffield: University of Sheffield.Google Scholar
Zvelebil, M. 1986. Mesolithic societies and the transition to farming: problems of time, scale and organization. In Zvelebil, M. (ed.), Hunters in Transition, 167–88. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Zvelebil, M., Moore, J., Green, S. and Henson, D. 1987. Regional survey and the analysis of lithic scatters: a case study from south-east Ireland. In Rowley-Conwy, P., Zvelebil, M. and Blankholm, H. P. (eds), Mesolithic North-west Europe: Recent Trends, 932. Sheffield: University of Sheffield.Google Scholar
Zvelebil, M. and Rowley-Conwy, P. 1984. Transition to farming in northern Europe: a hunter-gatherer perspective. Norwegian Archaeological Review 17, 104–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar