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The Céide Fields. The Old School Tie.

When I was studying archaeology in UCC from 2014 to 2017, we learned about the Céide Fields, a neolithic field system that had been discovered back in the 1970s initially, under a blanket bog on the north coast of Mayo. The principal character involved in this discovery was Seamus Caulfield, and the whole discovery got a lot of hype because it was the earliest indication of a fairly intensive and well organised agriculture in NW Europe. The 'stone walls' under the bog had been discovered by probing with a long rod, and some small areas had been excavated, exposed, and examined. The details of the site and excavations are available in the literature. Other nearby archaeological sites, dating from the neolithic period through to the bronze age, have been linked to the field system, making a large complex of agricultural, habitation, and ritual monuments that appear to have been in use over an extended period of time. To celebrate the discoveries and make the whole accessible to the public a Céide Fields centre was built, a sort of glassy, pyramidal structure. One would assume it cost a lot of money to build and set up, but it probably brings in some money from tourists.

Some aspects of Céide Fields did not ring quite true to me. The first was why was so much effort put into building walls. It sort of made sense if the land was being cleared of rocks, but that really wouldn't make sense for a dairy based agriculture, as was initially proposed. Why put cows inside fields? They need to be moved around, and they need water, so we would expect to find gateways and available water. Walls make more sense for arable farming, partly to use the rocks cleared from the land, and then walls to keep animals out of the crops. But stone walls would not keep wild animals out, only domesticated animals; deer, foxes, wolves etc. all easily scale walls. And this extensive system of walls seemed an excessive amount of construction effort to keep herds of cows and flocks of sheep out. A herder or two would do the job just as well (in the same they manage to control flocks and herds today across the middle east and Africa), and herders would have been essential with the natural predators that were around at the time. There can be no question that all herds and flocks were tended closely.

There was also the suggestion that the walls held the progressive growth of bog back, enabling pasture to be sustained. It was not clear how this would be undertaken. Ploughing and then reseeding of pasture might be a modern solution, but not so easily applied in Neolithic times. Was grass seed even obtainable in such large amounts as would be required?

As happens, the theories of neolithic field system became accepted. Other studies focussed on various aspects of the archaeology and palaeoenvironment of the area, and these studies found their place into the literature and became widely cited and referenced.

My doubts were heightened when the news spread like gossip does of a challenge, in 2017, to the accepted theories of Seamus Caulfield. Neolithic ‘Celtic’ Fields? A Reinterpretation of the Chronological Evidence from Céide Fields in North-western Ireland. The dates for the field system were questioned and it was suggested that the Bronze Age was much more likely, and would in fact make the Céide field system fit in much better with the general understanding of the progress of agricultural development. A furore apparently ensued. It was delicious. Quite rapidly ranks were closed and supporters of the accepted Céide fields system verified that they had checked the dates and all was well.

This all came back to me as I have been undertaking a scoping review of the palaeoenvironmental studies undertaken in Ireland. I came across a paper by Michael O'Connell et. al. from 2020 - Long-term human impact and environmental change in mid-western Ireland, with particular reference to Céide Fields – an overview. I wondered what happened to Andrew Whitefield who had suggested an alternative date. I found a very interesting chapter that had been written by him in a book entitled Houses of the Dead. The chapter is entitled "Shaky foundations: Romantic nationalism and the development of the 'Irish model'of Neolithic settlement".

I have read this chapter three times. I believe it should be essential reading for every undergraduate archaeology student. It explains so much to me about the attitudes and behaviour that exist amongst certain members of the archaeology academics in Ireland. My own personal opinion, formed even when in the first and second year of the degree, is that a lot of archaeology is poorly documented, subject to the need to fulfil expectations and prove the correctness of theories, and is often not undertaken with open minds. Once an idea becomes established it takes a brave person to question it.

This is even the case with palaeoenvironmental studies connected with archaeology. One would expect these to have moved into a more scientific approach, but still I am coming across studies that are selective in the data that is presented, with data that does not fit being discarded. Openness and the FAIR principles do not seem to have been fully adopted in this area of academe yet.