Evidence of a 7,200-year-old lakeshore settlement which spanned at least 1,000 years has been uncovered in a Co Longford wetland. Tim O'Brien reports.
The remains of a crannóg-like settlement which has been dated to 7,200 years ago were found by Swedish archaeologist Dr Christina Fredengren, who is currently working close to Lough Kinale near Abbeylara.
The find is significant because it also contains evidence of alterations which were carried out about 1,000 years later - indicating if not a previously unknown 1,000-year continual civilisation in Longford, then certainly some progression from hunter gatherers to farming settlers.
The main feature of the find - a stone platform of 12 metres in diameter overlaid with brushwood and the remains of three fireplaces - is thought to date from the late megalithic period, which makes it older than the Loughcrew cairns or the pyramids of Egypt.
The younger evidence is of an alignment of wooden stakes which have been carbon dated to around 6,000 BC.
The find is also significant because of the large amount of organic material present. Organic material from these periods is rare and the State has probably only one other significant collection.
Also significant is the site of the find, about half a metre above an early lake bed, on a flood wetland between the high and low water marks, where the Inny River leaves Lake Kinale in the Longford-Westmeath border area. The Inny is a tributary of the Shannon and hunter-gatherers emerging from the Shannon would find the stone platform very exposed and visible from all points of the lake, surrounding countryside and much of the river. "It is a very interesting find and we are all very excited about it because it may belong to the interim period when man stopped being a hunter-gatherer and before he established farming settlements," Dr Fredengren told The Irish Times.
Lough Kinale was previously the subject of archaeological interest in 1986 when an incomplete and disassembled casket or book shrine was found underwater close to a crannóg.
Dr Fredengren, who is attached to the State's Discovery Programme, funded through the Heritage Council, has so far discovered more than 12,000 artefacts. She has previously published a book on Irish lakeshore settlements.