The Neolithic period is associated with the first events whereby people made a considerable and detectable impact on their environment. Ireland has a rich and varied source of palaeoenvironmental data, especially pollen evidence for forest clearance and land use that has been gathered and studied over many decades. Over the last decade in particular, much more evidence than ever before for Neolithic settlement has emerged in the Irish landscape, through developer-led archaeology, whilst an increasing corpus of data, especially in the form of plant macro-remains, attest to the agricultural activities associated with these settlements. Emerging debates are also focusing on the role of environmental change in the development of agriculture. The aim of this seminar is to discuss both the archaeological evidence for Neolithic settlement and economy, and the palaeoecology of landscape, and how the two approaches can be used together to provide a more detailed view of settlement, agriculture, landscape and life in the Neolithic period in Ireland and their associated chronologies. During the seminar, some of the latest results from the INSTAR 2009 funded “Cultivating Societies” project will be discussed, alongside other case studies and overviews from Ireland and Scotland. The afternoon workshop is aimed at archaeologists and environmental archaeologists from the commercial, state and academic sectors who wish to learn more about how past landscapes can be reconstructed, and how evidence for past landscape change is resolved. More experienced environmental archaeologists will have the opportunity to hear about latest modelling approaches using PollandCal. Places on the afternoon workshop are limited to 50 participants, selected on the basis of the application form. The deadline for registration is 5pm on Friday 30th October 2009.
The speakers, in programme order, are;
The speakers, in programme order, are;
- Jessica Smyth, University College Dublin: Missing Links: challenges for Neolithic settlement archaeology.
- Kenneth Brophy, University of Glasgow: Where were they living? Neolithic houses in lowland Scotland.
- Meriel McClatchie and Rowan McLaughlin, Queen's University Belfast: Plant macro-fossils from Neolithic Ireland and their implications for understanding early agriculture.
- Phil Barratt, Queen's University Belfast: Dating the Neolithic landscape: palaeoecological and chronological implications.
- Graeme Warren, Stephen Davis and Naomi Holmes, University College Dublin: Palaeoclimatology and Archaeology of a Prehistoric Landscape in North Mayo.
- Jane Bunting, University of Hull: Exploring landscape patterning from pollen records: terrestrial habitats in mid-Holocene Orkney.
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