In the Neolithic period, which lasted from approximately 4000 to 1700 BC, ceremonies surrounding the deceased were complex and ritualistic.  Elaborate burial structures, some of which are still survive, were used to mark graves.  There are different types of burials, but all are organized with careful attention paid to directions of the position of the sun.  Thus there was probably some sort of fixation on, or worship of, the sun and its powers.  Some of these burial structures may have been used as ceremonial centers.  It has also been suggested that the people of this time also practiced ancestor worship.  No matter what the rituals focused on, they were considered of great importance to the Neolithic people.  These Megalithic tombs builders lived in small peasant farming communities, practiced hunting, and had some trade.  There is evidence that three main types of burials existed in the Neolithic times.  They are court tombs, portal tombs, and passage tombs.  Passage tombs appear somewhat later in the record than court tombs and portal tombs.

Court Tombs
Court tombs, also known as court cairns or gallery tombs, are defined as “a tumulus with a court giving access to the court chamber” (Mohen 1990:291).  A cairn is also known as a barrow.  The court is usually internal and completely surrounded by the mound, thought they can be external as well.  They are usually trapezoidal with a defining edge made up of standing slabs of stone and one main burial chamber.  The longer edge of the trapezoid customarily lays east/west, and most of the tombs seem to favor the east side.  There may be one or two oval shaped courts inside the trapezoid cairn.  (It is from these courts that the tombs obtained their name.)  The open courts were designed to hold mourners, and were considered sacred.  Off of the courts were the main chambers, which contained one or two galleries.  Each gallery would have either two or four chambers.  Sometimes there would be additional single chambers coming off of the courts, or from the outer edge of the cairn below the main gallery.  The burial galleries were marked by somewhat elaborate entrances, with two portals topped by a large lintel, and the entrances were framed on the sides by two more large matching stones.  A dual court tomb is a type of court tomb that most likely developed in Mayo, and then spread northwards toward Leitrim.
 

Cremation is common in court tombs, perhaps because of the issue of preservation. Court tombs are found almost predominantly in the North of Ireland, most likely because of the materials available in different regional areas.  There are about three hundred and fifty known ones in Ireland as well as eighty in Scotland.  They are thought to be among the oldest types of “island megalithism” (Mohen 1990:89).  There were never large amounts of remains placed in these tombs.  The ashes of what is believed to be around thirty people were found at Audleystown, but this is most likely an exception.  Court tombs were located in  prominent places within the communities, but not much is known about a connection between mortuary practices and residential areas in the Neolithic period.  Creevykeel is a prime example of a court tomb, as are Carrowleagh, Behy, and Ballyglass.  Pottery and lithics are sometimes found as grave goods in these tombs, but the types tend to vary regionally.  The different types of pottery found also imply a very long use for these tombs.  Stone arrowheads, javelin heads, and axes are common finds in these tombs.  Animal bones have also been found in court tombs.  These grave goods can be interpreted as the remains of a burial feast, or simply as offerings for the deceased.

Pictured above is the court cairn at Creevykeel, Co. Sligo.  In the foreground are two chambers, which open into the main internal chamber.  This was originally covered in stone slabs.

Passage Graves
Passage graves are found mostly in northern and eastern Ireland near the Welsh coastline, with many of the most famous monuments located in the Boyne Valley area. These graves consist of a burial chamber connected with the outside by a passage of varying lengths. The passage is sometimes lined with standing stones and is roofed by large, flat stones, with the burial chamber following this pattern as well. Many of the larger tombs housing more burials have several side chambers. These burial chambers and passages are then contained within an earthen mound, with the burial chamber near the center. This design causes passage graves to usually be found on hills or in ridge top areas.

The fragments of cremated bone found in recent excavations on these graves further confirm their use as burial places, but the ornaments found with these bones lead to debate about the ritualistic practices of the Neolithic people. Many antler hair pins and carved and beaded necklaces and pendants have been found with the remains. Some of these pendants were fashioned in the shape of some type of larger tool (Mohen 1990:190). Stone basins have also been found in tombs in the Boyne Valley and several other places, causing speculation as to their role in depositing the remains of the dead. Thick, ornamented bowls are the only pottery associated with the burials of the Passage Grave people. It has been speculated that these vessels were used to either carry remains to the tombs or to serve as containers for food, drink, or other things to go with the dead. Unlike in France and England, no flint or stone weapons or tools have been found with Passage Grave burials in Ireland. (Herity 1996:69). Passage Graves are also outstanding because of the ornamentation of the actual graves themselves. Art is found on many of the tomb walls, with most of these designs consisting of spirals, chevrons, lozenges, etc., but some of them of the human face and form. Others have animal and astronomical representations. Other Passage Graves have been found in Iberia, Brittany, and Scandinavia. These builders seem to have put much more emphasis on the style of the dead, with their remains highly adorned and much greater ornamentation on the walls.

Opposing evidence makes it difficult to make speculations about the Passage Grave builders in Ireland.  From evidence of the remains of other Passage Grave builders in Spain and Brittany, one would gather that the builders in Ireland lived in age-based settlements, but the size of the Boyne evidence indicates that the builders lived in townships. The location of the tombs in relation to the surrounding land and their usual location near water implies that the builders were decent farmers, able to utilize the land for all it was worth (Herity 1996:58). Baltinglass Hill, Fourknocks, and Newgrange are all Passage Graves that have some type of probable settlement evidence. At Baltinglass Hill, two fireplaces have been found under the tomb, at Fourknocks, rough Carrowkeel Ware has been found suggesting domestic refuse, and at Newgrange, stones and evidence of settlements have been built, signifying longer periods of settlement. These and other excavations have produced evidence of an insular aspect of the people as well as a tendency to settle in one area for longer periods of time than those who lived there previously (Mohen 1990:197). In terms of the rituals performed by these people, they most likely centered on the lunar system. Many of these graves have some type of structural astronomical alignment, and rituals may have paid homage to the sun or moon. Based on the maceheads, pottery, and other artifacts found at some of the burials, some have concluded that a type of ritual occurred before burial, and then the dead were buried with some of the articles used during that ceremony.

Portal Tombs
The third type of Neolithic Megalithic monument is the Portal Tomb. These are found mostly in northern and eastern Ireland, with some in the mid-southern region. These are often single grave burials constructed on three standing stones with a large monolith balanced on the top. They are set up in a tripod design, with the sole stone lower than the other two, and usually face east. It is difficult to tell how many people are buried at each one, and some may have even had burial chambers (Herity 1996:85). Though these tombs are less elaborate than the other two types of tombs, they all seem to be miracles of engineering. For example, the Legananny dolmen has a roof slab of about 40 tons, which touches down on the other three stones for no more than five square centimeters on each stone. A number of the portal tombs have been found in a tandem arrangement, with two similar tombs ranging from 10-90 meters apart. One such example is at Malinmore, where the two tombs are 90 m apart.  Remains have been found suggesting a cairn that at one point in time enclosed these two monuments. Four smaller chambers can also still be seen between the two tandem tombs (Herity 1996:89).

In terms of grave goods, habitation debris and coarse pottery has been found at Ballykeel, along with evidence that the person(s) buried here had undergone inhumation. Some sherds of a Goodland bowl, a flint javelin-head, and a discoidal bead were also found at this site. Other goods found at portal tombs have been plano-convex knives, kite-shaped javelin-heads, and hollow scrapers. This lack of personal adornment points to a different attitude towards the dead. Some coarse ware and hollow-based arrowheads have been found, but not nearly as many as have been seen in other areas (Wernick 1973:63). The Poulnabrone Dolmen in the Burren provides people today with a view of life at that time. Some 22 burials over a period of 600 years have been identified at this site. This high number of individuals indicates that this may have been some type of ceremonial cemetery for an elite class. Polished stone axeheads, a bone pendant, other animal bones, and other jewellery pieces have been found here, enforcing this idea.  The portal tombs themselves imply a hierarchical structure and prosperous society. These tombs were most likely quite difficult to construct, and therefore would not have been intended for ordinary people. About 160 of these tombs have been found in Ireland, and thus the construction of these would probably have been saved for the most influential people. Besides Ireland, portal tombs are most frequently seen in western and southern England. These are the probable locations from which settlers would have come over to inhabit Ireland. Though it is now known that these were used as burial chambers, it was once believed that the Druids used them as sacrificial altars. The structure was thought to have been a table, and it was only discovered in the 1850s that they could only have been used from the inside (Mohen 1990:24).
 
 

These pictures are examples of pottery found in  association with Neolithic Megalithic tombs.

As the false (yet widely believed before 1850) hypothesis regarding the use of Portal Tombs shows, it is difficult to obtain much knowledge of the Neolithic people who built these tombs.  Much of what we know about their lives has been learned from what we know about how they dealt with death.  From the hard stone weapons commonly found, to the pottery, beads and pendants that they left behind, we are able to piece together a small part of their society.  The mere existence of the tombs themselves implies a great deal about the people who built them.  They would have taken an immense amount of work to build, and architects and engineers of today are still wondering how they were able to build them without any of the modern tools that we have today.  First of all, the materials (stone and sometimes wood) had to be acquired and then transported to the construction site.  This would probably require a large labor force, as would the next step of actually building the monuments according to some predetermined plan.  Thus it took an immense amount of effort to build a tomb.  This fact, coupled with the fact that many of the tombs do not hold very many bodies, implies that perhaps only certain members of society were buried in megalithic tombs.  The society may have been hierarchical, with only the elite having the privilege of a special burial.  Another possibility is that individual families built the tombs.  There is evidence that many of the bodies in some tombs are very closely related, so perhaps only certain families in society built tombs for their deceased.

The prominence and permanence of these tombs imply that they have an important purpose, and they mark an area very clearly.  The tombs are often located in very visible places, and may have been used to signify land ownership and territoriality.  The bones of both domesticated and wild animals have been found in tombs, demonstrating that people at this time were hunting, farming, and raising livestock.  Societies were forming, with different occupations, and a possible elite class of priests or architects and these new communities may have felt the need to claim their own piece of land.  There are several possible reasons that these megalithic tombs were built, and they may also have served several purposes.  For now though, they serve as reminders of the past, and leave us with many unanswered questions.

Pictures and Layouts of Tombs

Brindley, Anna.  Irish Prehistory: An Introduction.  Dublin:  Town and Country House, 1994.

De Valera, Ruaidhri, & O Nuallain.  Survey of the Megalithic Tombs of Ireland.  Dublin:  Stationery Office, 1972.

Herity, Michael & Eogan, George.  Ireland in Prehistory. London:  Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1996.

Mohen, Jean-Pierre.  The World of Megaliths.  New York:  Facts on File, Inc., 1990.

Wernick, Robert.  The Monument Builders. New York:  Time-Life Books, 1973.