Creggandevesky

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Creggandevesky
Forms of court tombs - Creggandevesky top left
Lough Mallon at Creggandevesky

Creggandevesky (also Creggandeveskey , Irish Creag an Dubhuisce , ( German  "The rock on the black water" )) is a megalithic complex of the Court Tomb type, also called Court Cairn. It originated around 3500 BC. On a hill at the northwest end of Lough Mallon (lake) and is located about 1.5 km from the junction of Loughmallon and Camlough Road, in a south-westerly direction; about four kilometers northeast of Carrickmore in County Tyrone in Northern Ireland .

The term Court Tomb was introduced in 1960 by the Irish archaeologist Ruaidhrí de Valera . The approximately 400 preserved, up to 60 m long systems, are located exclusively in the northern half of the Irish island . The plants of this type have either a central or, as in Creggandevesky, an outboard yard ( English court ). The structures are located in a stone mound , the edges of which are bordered by dry masonry . Because of the U-shaped or pincer-like framing of the forecourt by masonry - as with Creggandevesky - they are also known as Horned Cairns ("Horned Cairns") or Lobster Cairns ("Hummer Cairns"). Court Tombs are one of the megalithic chambered tombs in the British Isles . They are found almost exclusively in Ulster in the north of Ireland or in Northern Ireland .

Excavations

Creggandevesky's Court Tomb was discovered while exploring a low hill topped by three moss-covered boulders. At the end of the 1970s, plans were made to recultivate the entire area under a thick layer of peat. When it was discovered that the hill was a Neolithic tomb, an emergency excavation was carried out. After removing the blown ground, a trapezoidal cairn made of granite rock with a central gallery consisting of three axial chambers emerged. The cairn was so well preserved that Claire Foley conducted four seasonal excavations between 1979 and 1982.

description

The trapezoidal cairn is 18 m long and tapers from 13 m at the wider end to about 6.5 m at the northwest. The cairn is little worn and about 1.75 m high. The U-shaped courtyard is approximately 5.6 meters wide and five meters deep. The exedra of orthostats increases in height towards the on-axis access. The spaces between the orthostats are filled with intermediate masonry.

The lintel has been preserved above the south-east facing entrance to the gallery . The massive stone was one of three mossy rocks that protruded from the peat layer. All capstones of the three chambers are collapsed inwards. They were still covered with a number of smaller stones that could have led to a height of two to three meters in the central area of ​​the cairn. The cairn sloping towards the sides also falls towards the end. The aim was to use the least amount of filler material during the planning phase.

A small stone in the floor of the entrance is probably the original threshold stone . It is the only basal dividing stone within the gallery. The approximately ten meter long gallery has three asymmetrically located chambers, each divided by two lateral posts. The first and second chambers are not nearly the same width on either side of the passage. The first chamber widens much more on its west side than on the east side, in the second chamber this relationship is even more pronounced. The front chamber is egg-shaped in plan, the second is wide at the front and tapers towards the end. Due to the lack of stones, the shape of the third, probably rectangular chamber can only be guessed at. Your end stone and some stones on the east side are missing. Either the chamber was not completed or it was supplemented with dry masonry. In view of the location of the chamber in the middle of the hill, it cannot be assumed that it was robbed of its stones in prehistoric times, at least before the complex was covered by peat.

Finds

The cremated bones of 21 people were found in the chambers. This is the highest number in a court tomb that typically only contains the bones of two or three people. The identifiable remains are from seven women and five men. Most of the bones were found in the first chamber, some in chamber 3.

Chamber 2 contained no bones but an abundance of additions . Round-bottomed ceramics, a spearhead , a knife, arrowheads and scrapers made of flint and a necklace made of 112  stone beads . If the burials in chamber 2 were not cremations, they did not survive the acidic soil conditions. So there could have been more people buried in the cairn. In the complex of Audleystown , County Down , the remains were found of 33 people there so many body burials were double counted as cremations. It is therefore unlikely that the middle chamber was only used as a grave goods depot. In the rear chamber was a leaf-shaped arrowhead made of flint.

The remains of a fireplace and a few burned bones were discovered in the middle of the courtyard. The grave goods and the radiocarbon dating of the bones point to an approximately 100-year Neolithic use of the complex around 3500 BC. Chr.

agriculture

The construction of Creggandevesky falls into the end of the Atlantic , a climatic optimum of the Holocene . Agriculture was still possible in the 200 m above sea level area in which the plant is located. A piece of ceramic with an imprint of a stye from that period was found in the Creggandevesky court tomb . Which is also from the Neolithic originating residential place at Ballynagilly was the mid-1960s in Cookstown , a neighboring municipality of Carrickmore, excavated. The results of the pollen analysis on this property indicated slash and burn for arable farming. In the emerging sub-boreal region , temperatures fell, the water table rose and the fields were mossed , so that the farmers were forced to leave the region.

protection

Creggandevesky is often mentioned as an example in the literature on the protection of archaeological sites. In the course of the recultivation of the moorland for agriculture, the hill under which the facility is located should have been completely removed. Only when an emergency excavation revealed the importance of the well-preserved burial site under the peat, the plan was abandoned and the area placed under protection.

There are ten other court tombs in this area within a radius of 15 kilometers. Nearby is the stone circle of Cregganconroe .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Andy Halpin, Conor Newman: Ireland. An Oxford archaeological guide to sites from earliest times to AD 1600. Oxford University Press, Oxford et al. 2006, ISBN 0-19-280671-8 , p. 126.
  2. ↑ Ruaidhrí de Valera: A Group of "Horned Cairns" near Ballycastle, Co. Mayo. In: The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland. Vol. 81, No. 2, 1951, pp. 161-197, JSTOR 25510788 .
  3. ^ Claire Foley: Only an old pile of stones. In: Ann Hamlin, Chris J. Lynn (Eds.): Pieces of the Past. Archaeological Excavations by the Department for the Environment of Northern Ireland 1970-1986. Her Majesty's Stationary Office, Belfast 1988, ISBN 0-337-08216-2 , pp. 3-5.
  4. ^ A b c Karen Anderson: Creggandevesky Court Tomb. Queen's University of Belfast. (Accessed September 14, 2011).
  5. ↑ a b Creggandevesky Court Tomb - County Tyrone. Visited June 2002. Description on the Megalithics website. (Accessed September 12, 2011).
  6. ↑ a b c Elizabeth Shee Twohig: Irish Megalithic Tombs (= Shire Archeology. 63). Shire Publications, Princes Risborough 1990, ISBN 0-7478-0094-4 , pp. 22-25.
  7. ↑ Michael Herity: The Finds from Irish Court Tombs. In: Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. Section C: Archeology, Celtic Studies, History, Linguistics, Literature. 87C, 1987, pp. 103-281, JSTOR 25506150 .
  8. ^ Andy Halpin, Conor Newman: Ireland. An Oxford archaeological guide to sites from earliest times to AD 1600. Oxford University Press, Oxford et al. 2006, ISBN 0-19-280671-8 , p. 127.
  9. ↑ Michael A. Monk: Evidence from Macroscopic Plant Remains for Crop Husbandry in Prehistoric and Early Historic Ireland: A Review. In: The Journal of Irish Archeology. Vol. 3, 1985/1986, pp. 31-36, here pp. 31-32, JSTOR 30001635 .
  10. ↑ Claire Foley: Tyrone. In: Archeology Ireland. Vol. 3, No. 3, 1989, pp. 86-90, JSTOR 20558294 .
  11. ^ Ann Hamlin: Government Archeology in Northern Ireland. In: Henry Cleere (Ed.): Archaeological heritage management in the modern world (= One World Archeology. 9). Unwin Hyman, London et al. 1989, ISBN 0-04-445028-1 , pp. 171-181, here p. 175.

literature

  • Elizabeth Shee Twohig: Irish Megalithic Tombs (= Shire Archeology. 63). Shire Publications, Princes Risborough 1990, ISBN 0-7478-0094-4 .
  • Colm J. Donnelly: Living Places. Archeology, Continuity and Change at Historic Monuments in Northern Ireland. The Institute of Irish Studies - The Queen's University of Belfast, Belfast 1997, ISBN 0-85389-475-2 .
  • Jürgen E. Walkowitz: The megalithic syndrome. European cult sites of the Stone Age (= contributions to the prehistory and early history of Central Europe. Vol. 36). Beier & Beran, Langenweißbach 2003, ISBN 3-930036-70-3 .

Web links

Coordinates: 54 ° 37 ′ 8.3 "  N , 7 ° 0 ′ 16.5"  W.