The Archaeology of Copper Mining on Mount Gabriel, Co. Cork, Ireland

Some thirty shallow workings (adits/pits) on Mount Gabriel, Co. Cork, Ireland (Irish National Grid V 93 34) are believed to date from the Bronze Age. Radiometric dates place charcoal from excavations between 1966 and 1987 firmly in the second millennium BC. Documentation of historic mining in the same area has been felt not to challenge either this dating or the location of what have been seen as distinctly separate prehistoric and historic industrial ventures. The excavated stratigraphies are here re-appraised, demonstrating that the locations of at least some historic 'trials' were coincident with the mineral extraction pits producing Bronze Age charcoal. In the continuing absence of diagnostically Bronze Age cultural debris, it is proposed that the adits mapped and excavated archaeologically are being misascribed Bronze Age origins and that the calibrated charcoal derives from local peat formations, the origin of which was unconnected with mineral extraction

Archaeology · Art · Copper · Copper mine · Cork · Geography · Metallurgy · Mount · Archaeological Research and Protection · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Engineering · Historical and Cultural Archaeology Studies · History · Materials Science

• An Introduction to Optical Dating

  M J Aitken•An introduction to optical dating•1998

  Añadir item

• Bog Wood

  A T Lucas•Béaloideas•1954

  Añadir item

• Copper Mining at Mount Gabriel, Co. Cork

  John S Jackson•Proceedings of the Prehistoric…•1984

  Añadir item

• The Mineralogy of Bronze Age Copper Ores from the British Isles

  Open Access•Rob Ixer, R A Ixer et al.•Oxford Journal of Archaeology•1998

  Añadir item

• Prehistoric Copper Mining in South-West Ireland

  Open Access•William O’brien, William F O'Brien•Proceedings of the Prehistoric…•1990

  Añadir item