Irish Neolithic Landscapes and Land Use Systems: The Implications of Field Systems

Abstract

I approach this paper as a prehistorian whose research has been primarily in areas with little or no surviving evidence for prehistoric fields, so that my only close encounter with field systems has been at Kilmashogue and other sites in the uplands just to the south of Dublin (figure 1 shows the location of the main areas and sites in Ireland mentioned in the text). These are certainly fixed in space but unfortunately are as yet floating in time (Cooney, 1985). But this personal predicament is in fact central to the problems approached in this paper: that while there is increasing evidence for prehistoric field systems in Ireland, they are frequently perceived as occurring in the archaeological record only in certain areas; that the relationship between them and other aspects of the archaeological record is not always clear; and that there are major problems in dating these field systems.My second introductory point is to comment that the sequence of the title is deliberate. The significance of field systems must be seen in the context of what would have been the contemporary cultural landscape and land use, and the various interpretations which have been made of these. The occurrence of field systems has major implications for the way we view the human impact on the environment and use of the land during the Neolithic period in Ireland (4,000 – 2,500 BC).