Kinale I - Studies of an Irish Lake
The general aim of the project was to examine the lake archaeology in this location and to attempt to get a better understanding of how people related to the lake at different times. We also wanted to see how people related to this particular topographical setting, which itself changed over time. The project examined the lake archaeology from the Mesolithic to the present incorporating the surrounding terrestrial archaeology as well. Lake archaeology is an under-studied aspect of Irish archaeology and this project is designed to contribute to a better understanding of this topic.
Lough Kinale was selected for study because a lake with a soft bed was likely to provide good environmental information. The locality also had potential for the study of lake settlement archaeology and lake settlement questions in a landscape context. A general review of the material from Lough Kinale showed that distinct human indicators existed for the Mesolithic period, the early medieval period and later. There was, for example, potential to examine the question of the construction of man-made islands in the Mesolithic, one of the outstanding issues in lake settlement research (a question connected with our understanding of the context of many of the late Mesolithic artefacts found on lakeshores in many parts of Ireland). Other issues that could be addressed in the Kinale material included the building and use of larger high-cairn crannogs in proximity to each other. There are three large crannogs in the area, two of which have yielded rich artefact material. Were they in use at the same time and what was their social meaning?
In landscape terms, the Lough Kinale study area could be taken to represent a rather large lake on a river system that has some archaeology and is therefore comparable to Lough Ennell and Lough Gara. As in the case of the Lough Gara region, prehistoric monuments around Lough Kinale occur in upland areas. Environmental analysis might throw light on what was happening in the zone between the monuments and the lake. We also tried to understand how the vegetation and the lake may have appeared to people at different points in time and to use this information to see how these could have been manipulated in people’s social strategies and involvement with their landscapes. From a purely topographical angle, the Kinale study area may be compared with the small drumlin lake areas in Cavan, Monaghan, Leitrim and Roscommon. These areas hold much more lake settlement archaeology, and the lakes seem to be isolated and not connected by waterways.
It is hoped that the monograph detailing the final reports on this work will be published later in 2009