Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-29T05:58:21.807Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Late Mesolithic fish traps from the Liffey estuary, Dublin, Ireland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Melanie McQuade  and
Lorna O'Donnell
Melanie McQuade
Affiliation:
Margaret Gowen & Co. Ltd., 27 Merrion Square, Dublin 2, Ireland
Lorna O'Donnell
Affiliation:
Margaret Gowen & Co. Ltd., 27 Merrion Square, Dublin 2, Ireland
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

An opportunity to investigate in advance of new construction led to the discovery of five Mesolithic hazel fish traps some 6.3m below mean sea level in the River Liffey. Closely paralleled on the continent of Europe they imply a well organised community that knew how to catch fish using the tide, to make wattle-work and baskets and who undertook coppicing on an eight year cycle in about 6100-5700 cal BC. The likelihood of more Mesolithic remains under European towns that have remained attractive to fishers and settlers has considerable implications for Cultural Resource Management. Do we always know how to find and access such delicate and important traces?

Keywords

MesolithicIrelandcoppicingCRMfishfish trapswoodland
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 81 , Issue 313 , 1 September 2007 , pp. 569 - 584
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Andersen, S. H. 1987. Tybrind Vig: A Submerged Ertebolle Settlement in Denmark, in Coles, J. M. & Lawson, J. L. (ed.) European Wetlands in Prehistory: 253–80. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Brinkhuizen, D. C. 1983. Some notes on recent and pre- and protohistoric fishing gear from North-western Europe. Palaeohistoria 25: 8–53.Google Scholar
Chêng, Tê-K'un. 1964. The beginning of Chinese civilisation. Antiquity 47: 197–209.Google Scholar
Christensen, K. 1997. Wood from fish weirs - forestry in the Stone Age, in Pedersen, L., Fischer, A. & Aaby, B. (ed.) The Danish Storebaelt since the Ice Age - man, sea and forest: 151–6. Copenhagen: A/S Storebaelt Fixed Link.Google Scholar
Clarke, J. G. 1948. The development of fishing in prehistoric Europe. The Antiquaries Journal 28: 45–84.Google Scholar
Edlin, H. L. 1973. Woodland crafts in Britain. Newton Abbott: David & Charles.Google Scholar
Enghoff, I. B. 1995. Fishing in Denmark during the Mesolithic Period, in Fischer, A. (ed.) Man and sea in the Mesolithic. Coastal Settlement above and below present sea level (Oxbow Monograph 53): 67–74. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Goodwin, A.J.H. 1946. Prehistoric fishing methods in South Africa. Antiquity 20: 134–41.Google Scholar
Huge, D., Watchman, A., De dapper, M. & Marchi, E.. 2001. Dating Egypt's oldest ‘art’: AMS 14C determinations of rock varnishes covering petroglyphs at El-Hosh (Upper Egypt). Antiquity 75: 68–72.Google Scholar
Karsten, P. & Knarrstrom, B.. 2003. The Tagerup Excavations. Lund: National Heritage Board.Google Scholar
Kimball, M. J. 2000. Variation and Context: Ecology and Social Evolution in Ireland's Later Mesolithic, in Desmond, A., Johnson, G., McCarthy, M., Sheehan, J. & Shee Twohig, E. (ed.) New Agendas in Irish Prehistory, Papers in commemoration of Liz Anderson: 31–47. Bray: Wordwell.Google Scholar
Liversage, G. D. 1968. Excavations at Dalkey Island, Co.Dublin, 1956-1959. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 60C: 53–233.Google Scholar
Louwe Kooijmans, L.P. 1986. Het loze vissertje of boerke Naas?, in van Trierum, M.D. & Henke, H. E. (ed.) Rotterdam Papers V: 7–24. Rotterdam.Google Scholar
Louwe Kooijmans, L.P. (ed.) 2001. Archeologie in de Betuweroute Hardinxveld-Giessendam De Bruin. Een kampplaats uit het Laat-Mesolithicum en het begin van de Swifterbant-cultuur (5500-4450 v. Chr.). Amersfoort.Google Scholar
Louwe Kooijmans, L. P. 2003. The Hardinxveld sites in the Rhine/Meuse Delta, the Netherland, 5500-4500 cal BC, in Larsson, L. et al. (ed.) Mesolithic on the move: Papers presented at the Sixth International Conference on the Mesolithic in Europe, Stockholm 2000: 608–24.Google Scholar
Lozovski, V. 1999. Archaeological and ethnographic data for fishing structures from northeastern Europe to Siberia and the evidence from Zamostje 2, Russia, in Coles, B., Coles, J. & Schou Jorgensen, M. (ed.) Bogs Bodies, Sacred Sites and Wetland Archaeology (WARP Occasional Paper 6): 139–47. Exeter: University of Exeter Press.Google Scholar
Matsui, A. 1999. Wetland archaeology in Japan. Key sites and features in the research history, in Coles, B., Coles, J. & Schou Jorgensen, M. (ed.) Bogs Bodies, Sacred Sites and Wetland Archaeology (WARP Occasional Paper 6): 147–56. Exeter: University of Exeter Press.Google Scholar
McCarthy, M. 1999. Faunal remains, in Woodman, P. C., Anderson, E. & Finlay, N. (ed.) Excavations at Ferriter's Cove, 1983-95: last foragers, first farmers in the Dingle Peninsula: 203–5. Bray: Wordwell.Google Scholar
Mitchell, G. F. 1956. An early kitchen-midden at Sutton, Co.Dublin. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 86: 1–26.Google Scholar
Mitchell, G. F. 1972. Further excavation of the early kitchen-midden at Sutton, Co. Dublin. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 102: 160–73.Google Scholar
Mitchell, G. F. 1990. Reading the Irish Landscape. Dublin: Country House.Google Scholar
Mordant, C. & Mordant, D.. 1992. Noyen-sur-Seine: a Mesolithic waterside settlement, in Coles, B. (ed.) The Wetland Revolution in Prehistory. The Prehistoric Society (WARP Occassional Paper 6): 55–65. Exeter: University of Exeter Press.Google Scholar
Myrhoj, H. M. 1997. Reconstruction of a fish trap, in Pedersen, L., Fischer, A. & Aaby, B. (ed.) The Danish Storebaelt since the Ice Age - man, sea and forest: 167–8. Copenhagen: A/S Storebaelt Fixed Link.Google Scholar
Myrhoj, H. M. 1999. Mesolithic driftwood layers in the Halsskov fjord, Denmark. A discussion of interpretation and implications, in Coles, B., Coles, J. & Schou Jorgensen, M. (ed.) Bogs Bodies, Sacred Sites and Wetland Archaeology (WARP Occasional Paper 6): 171–5. Exeter: University of Exeter Press.Google Scholar
O'Sullivan, A. 1996. Neolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age woodworking techniques, in Raftery, B. (ed.) Trackway excavations in the Mountdillon Bogs, Co. Longford 1985-1991: 291–343. Dublin: Crannog.Google Scholar
O'Sullivan, A. 1998. The Archaeology of lake settlement in Ireland (Discovery Programme Monographs 4). Dublin: Royal Irish Academy.Google Scholar
O'Sullivan, A. 2001. Foragers, farmers and fishers in a coastal landscape: an intertidal archaeological survey of the Shannon estuary. (Discovery Programme Monograph 5). Dublin: Royal Irish Academy.Google Scholar
Pedersen, L. 1997a. They put fences in the sea, in Pedersen, L., Fischer, A. & Aaby, B. (ed.) The Danish Storebaelt since the Ice Age - man, sea and forest: 124–43. Copenhagen: A/S Storebaelt Fixed Link.Google Scholar
Pedersen, L. 1997b. Wooden eel weirs: a technique that lasted 7,000 years, in Pedersen, L., Fischer, A. & Aaby, B. (ed.) The Danish Storebaelt since the Ice Age - man, sea and forest: 144–68. Copenhagen: A/S Storebaelt Fixed Link.Google Scholar
Pedersen, L. 1999. Fishing Structures in Wetlands, in Coles, B., Coles, J. & Schou Jorgensen, M. (ed.) Bogs Bodies, Sacred Sites and Wetland Archaeology (WARP Occasional Paper 6): 185–90. Exeter: University of Exeter Press.Google Scholar
Richards, M. P. & Schulting, R. J.. 2006. Touch not the fish: the Mesolithic-Neolithic change of diet and its significance. Antiquity 80: 444–56.Google Scholar
Schweingruber, F. H. 1978. Microscopic wood anatomy. Birmensdorf: Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research.Google Scholar
Stout, G. & Stout, M.. 1992. Patterns in the Past: County Dublin 5000BC-1000AD, in Aalen, F.H.A. & Whelan, K. (ed.) Dublin City and County: from Prehistory to present: 5–14. Dublin: Geography Publications.Google Scholar
Stuiver, M. & Polach, H. A.. 1977. Discussion: Reporting of 14C Data. Radiocarbon 19 (3): 355–63.Google Scholar
Synge, F. M. 1977. The Coasts of Leinster (Ireland), in Kidson, C. & Tooley, M. J. (ed.) The Quaternary History of the Irish Sea (Geological Journal Special Issue 7): 119–223. Liverpool: Seal House Press.Google Scholar
van Wijngaarden-Bakker, L. 1983. The colonization of islands. The mamalian evidence from Irish archaeological sites, in Sleeman, D.P, Devoy, R. J. & Woodman, P.C. (ed.) Proceedings of the postglacial colonization conference. University College Cork (Occasional publication of the Irish Biogeographical Society 1): 38–41.Google Scholar
Waddell, J. 1998. The Prehistoric Archaeology of Ireland. Galway: Galway University Press.Google Scholar
Woodman, P. C. 1977. Recent Excavations at Newfery, Co. Antrim. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 43: 155–99.Google Scholar
Woodman, P. C. 2003. Pushing back the Boundaries, John Jackson Lecture 2003 (Royal Dublin Society Occasional Papers in Irish Science and Technology 27). Dublin: Royal Dublin Society.Google Scholar
Woodman, P. C., Anderson, E. & Finlay, N.. 1999. Excavations at Ferriter's Cove, 1983-95: last foragers, first farmers in the Dingle Peninsula. Bray: Wordwell.Google Scholar
Woodman, P. C., McCarthy, M. & Monaghan, N.. 1997. The Irish Quaternary Fauna Project. Quaternary Science Review 16: 129–59.Google Scholar