Movements & connections between Ireland & Scotland (and beyond!), from around 4000 BC - c.1500 BC
Channel: The Ulster Archaeological Society
Date: 2021-09-28

The past of Ireland and Scotland has been intertwined for at least 6000 years, and this lecture looks at the varied and fascinating ways in which the inhabitants of Ireland and Scotland were connected from around 4000 BC – the time of the first farmers – to around 1500 BC, the middle of the Bronze Age. The lecture will start by exploring the shared origins of our Neolithic inhabitants on the near Continent, and will then look at the ways in which networks of contacts were rapidly established, enabling close social and economic ties to be maintained. The remarkable developments of c. 3200–2900 BC, when elites indulged in long-distance voyages that connected Orkney with Ireland and beyond will be highlighted, as will the question of Atlantic rock art, with its links to Galicia. The importance of the flow of metal, especially from around 2200 BC, in offering ways to ‘get rich (and powerful) quick’, will be underlined, and the remarkable lives of a couple of well-travelled Irish people will be outlined.

Alison Sheridan was Principal Curator of Early Prehistory at National Museums Scotland, where she worked from 1987 to 2019. She specialises in the Neolithic, Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age of Britain and Ireland, and particularly in ceramics and stone axeheads.

Axeheads from a hoard of Antrim flint objects found at Auchenhoan, near Campbeltown. Photo © National Museums Scotland