The invasion hypothesis in Irish prehistory

A glance at the archaeological literature of the last dozen years demonstrates all too clearly that the popularity of the 'invasion hypothesis' in Irish archaeology is quite undiminished. An almost incessant stream of immigrants appears to have tramped ashore from the Mesolithic period to the Iron Age. Even reckoning those pre-eminent invaders, the Beaker Folk, as merely a single influx, over a dozen significant prehistoric population movements are claimed by a variety of writers. The general picture presented suggests that Ireland throughout much of her prehistory was, if not an archaeological Ellis Island, at least a desirable landfall for the land-hungry, the dispossessed and the adventurous of most of the rest of Western Europe. Major changes and innovations in the archaeological record-in monument or artifact typemay conceivably be the result of either independent invention, or diffusion or of a combination of the two. The occurrence of megalithic tombs in very different cultural and chronological contexts in Western Europe, India and Japan, for example, is an instance of independent invention

Ancient history · Archaeological record · Archaeology · Artifact (error) · Beaker · Dozen · Ethnology · Geography · Irish · Linguistics · Megalith · Mesolithic · Population · Prehistory · Archaeological Research and Protection · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Demography · History · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology

• The Prehistory of Britain and Ireland

  Open Access•Richard Bradley•Prehistory of Britain and Ireland•2007

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• Hegemonic megaliths

  John Robb•Irish Studies Review•1999

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• California Archaeology and Linguistic Prehistory

  Richard E Hughes•Journal of Anthropological Research•1992

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• The Iron Age

  Jeffrey May•Archaeological Journal•1978

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• Re-assessing the logboat from Lurgan Townland, Co. Galway, Ireland

  Open Access•Michael E Robinson, D W Shimwell et al.•Antiquity•1999

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• Beaker people in Britain

  Open Access•Mike Parker Pearson, A Chamberlain et al.•Antiquity•2016

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• A sense of place in Irish prehistory

  Open Access•Gabriel Cooney•Antiquity•1993

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• Filling in the spaces in Irish prehistory

  Open Access•Peter Woodman, P C Woodman•Antiquity•1992

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• The luxury of abundance

  Open Access•David Fontijn, David Van Reybrouck•Archaeological Dialogues•1999

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• Passage-grave art in the Boyne Valley

  Open Access•Claire O'Kelly•Proceedings of the Prehistoric…•1973

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• Irish Neolithic Pottery

  Open Access•Humphrey Case•Proceedings of the Prehistoric…•1961

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• Swords and Scabbards of the British Early Iron Age

  Open Access•Stuart Piggott•Proceedings of the Prehistoric…•1950

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• The Lochhill long cairn

  Open Access•Lionel Masters•Antiquity•1973

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