Mount Sandel
The site at Mount Sandel ( Irish Cill Santail ) is the oldest evidence of the settlement of Mesolithic hunters and gatherers on the Irish island . Mount Sandel lies east of the remains of a fort in the urban area of Coleraine , County Londonderry in Northern Ireland . The site is about eight kilometers (as the crow flies) from the mouth of the River Bann into the Atlantic on an exposed hill.
description
The 700 m² archaeological site, discovered in the 19th century and excavated by Peter Woodman between 1973 and 1977 , is 9,000 years old according to radiocarbon dating and of great importance for the prehistory of Western Europe.
The field name Mount Sandel also refers to an Iron Age fortification. Some historians also locate the medieval place Kill Santain or Kilsandel at this place . This was the camp and fortified base of John de Courcy during the Anglo-Norman conquest in the 12th century.
Woodman found evidence of six round huts about six meters in diameter with a central hearth. The seventh hut is smaller, only about ten feet in diameter, and has an external hearth. The huts were made from a framework of curved branches stuck in post holes in the ground in a circle, which were probably covered with furs.
A variety of microliths (tiny stone tools) were found, as well as axes of flint , needles, scalene triangular arrowheads and knives. Although the conservation conditions were not good, hazelnut shells and bone fragments were found in a fire pit. A number of markings in the ground were interpreted as the remains of scaffolding for drying fish. Remains of red deer , game birds and wild boar as well as seals , eels , mackerels and mussels were found.
The place was inhabited all year round, but at the same time not more than 15 people. Around 6000 BC Mount Sandel was abandoned.
See also
literature
- Laurence Flanaghan: Ancient Ireland - Life before the Celts . Gill & Macmillan, 1998, pp. ISBN 0-7171-2433-9 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Laurence Flanaghan: Ancient Ireland - Life before the Celts . Gill & Macmillan, 1998, p. 166 ISBN 0-7171-2433-9
Web links
Coordinates: 55 ° 6 ′ 57.9 " N , 6 ° 39 ′ 51.1" W.