Dolmen 7 at Carrowmore. Some of Ireland's oldest monuments are found here.

Who What How When Where Why Pots & Basins Quartz Art

When were the cairns built? Dating of ancient sites is a tricky business. Archaeologists are cautious with C14 dating, which is also quite expensive. Twenty years ago, these monuments were considered to date from 4,000 BC - 3,000 BC. At the turn of the century they were thought to date from the bronze age. Further back, antiquarians didn't believe the ancient Irish were capible of achievements such as Newgrange, and the construction of the cairns was credited to the Danes and the Romans - rude stone monuments. Current lore suggests that Newgrange was constructed around 3,200 BC, and that both Knowth and Dowth are probably older. Books form 20 - 30 years ago stated that Newgrange and the Boyne sites were the first monuments to be built, and that a sequence of devolution took place as the cairn culture moved to the north-west. So, Loughcrew, Carrowkeel and Carrowmore were all built after the Boyne sites, and the people forgot their 'trade' as the mounds became simpler and cruder. However the devolution theory is now defunct as a series of contraversial C14 dates from Carrowmore have placed the Sligo sites firmly in the fifth millennium BC. One of the circles at Carrowmore may date from 5,400 BC, while a cairn on Croghaun Hill in the Ox Mountains turned up a date of 5,800 BC. These dates have not been accepted by Irish archaeologists yet, perhaps because they were discovered by Swedish archaeologists!