“This book provides a synthesis of what we currently know about how caves were used and
perceived by communities spanning the 10,000 years of human occupation of Ireland, from …

Background I arrived at this study along an experiential path. As a child I explored the
sunken and mysterious hollow ways of the chalk downland where I grew up and which have …

We report the discovery and analysis of new Mesolithic human remains—dated to ca.
10,200–9000 cal. BP—from Arma di Nasino in Liguria, northwestern Italy, an area rich in …

The Neolithic of Britain and Ireland provides a synthesis of this dynamic period of prehistory
from the end of the Mesolithic through to the early Beaker period. Drawing on new …

The adze resulted from the bringing together of different materials and it enabled the
creation of further assemblages. This remarkable object appears to have been made for a …

Ritual in archaeology is usually explored as an undifferentiated kind of esoteric or
'irrational'action, opposed to utilitarian or 'rational'—a characterization that clearly …

Caves in Ireland, as elsewhere, have been used for shelter and burial over much of
recorded time. The author here focuses on their use during the Neolithic, carefully isolating …

This paper reviews the human colonisation of Ireland. Archaeological evidence suggests
humans have been discontinuously present in Ireland from c. 12.8 to 12.5 ka cal BP. This …

In this first chapter I introduce the study area, the Irish Sea zone, and detail how I have
defined this area in this volume. This is not the first study to consider the Irish Sea zone and …

This paper discusses the significance of the southern North Sea for research on the human
occupation of northwest Europe after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Recent insight into …