Scores of new monuments have been uncovered at the Hill of Tara, one of Ireland's most ancient religious and archaeological locations. But experts attempting to unearth the secrets of the region have been outraged by plans to steer a motorway through the area.
A team from the Department of Archaeology at the National University of Ireland, Galway, backed by funds from the Government, have been researching theHill of Tara for a decade, but more recently the examination has been expandedto cover a total of 13 hectares of State-owned land.
The discovery of the new monuments has resulted from that work and some dateback to 4000 BC. But they have been made through what the experts call"non-invasive techniques," permitting archaeologists to find out if peopleonce occupied a particular area by recording the magnetic properties orelectrical resistance of the soil.
Soil is permanently altered by human activity - a bonfire or burial will haveenhanced the magnetism of the soil around it and a buried wall will act as abarrier to the movement of electric current passed through the earth andincrease its resistance.
The technique being used at Tara allows underground features to be mapped andanalysed as a preliminary step to excavating, which can then be carried out withprecision, making the procedure much less of a shot-in-the-dark.
Before the geophysical survey was begun, around 30 monuments had been located - now that figure has been more than trebled.
One of the most spectacular finds has been of a huge oval enclosure the samesize as Croke Park, thought to have been constructed in about 2500 BC and including a passage tomb.
Conor Newman, one of the Galway University team probing the Hill of Tara'ssecrets, said: "Every new monument discovered adds to our understanding of thecomplex.
"For the most part, the monument builders of each generation observed,preserved and accommodated all of the older ones in a way that contributedpositively and sensitively to the developing authority of Tara as a placeapart."
It is the present-day motorway construction that is presently angering thearchaeologists, however. Planners want to place the M3 route across part of theancient hill.
Mr Newman declared: "It is a reckless dereliction of our role as guardians ofcommon cultural heritage to drive a motorway through it.
"If you dissociate a society from its past, it becomes rootless. Tara is anational treasure and a massive tourist attraction. It should be managed not simply as a hilltop site, but rather as a cultural landscape."
PA