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The Diffusion and Distribution Pattern of the Megalithic Monuments of the Irish Sea and North Channel Coastlands

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2012

Extract

The areas which bound the Irish Sea and North Channel possess physical diversities which offered differing degrees of attraction to megalith building peoples. This paper attempts a discussion of those regional differences and of their influence on settlement and intercommunication during the centuries in which the different types of megalith were being built. The Irish Sea basin and its narrower northern strait are fringed by lands in which lie the major portion of our British megaliths. The main reason for this is to be found in the existence of marine highways along the Irish Sea and along the arms which it pushes into the land, and in the presence of connecting routes across the peninsulas which bound its bays.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1946

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References

page 40 note 1 Compiled from the following Admiralty Pilots: Irish Coast Pilot, West of England Pilot, West Scottish Coast Pilot.

page 42 note 1 Exceptions to this statement include the 2½–to 5-knot current through the Narrows at the entrance to Carlingford Lough, and that through the entrance to Strangford Lough which flows at 7 knots.

page 44 note 1 Groups of standing stones have not been ineluded unless there is reliable documentary evidence that they are the remains of a more complex structure. A more detailed series of distribution maps will be found in Antiq. Journ. xxv, 1945, pp. 125–44.

page 48 note 1 For a detailed study see A. R. Dwerryhouse, Q.J.G.S. lxxix, 1923, pp. 352–422.

page 48 note 2 E. E. Evans, I.N.J. v, 1935, p. 8

page 48 note 3 A group differentiated by Mahr. See P.P.S. iii, 1937, pp. 283 ff.

page 48 note 4 Watson, Edward, U.J.A. 3rd ser. iii, 1940, pp. 142–51.Google Scholar

page 50 note 1 Charlesworth, J. K., Q.J.G.S. lxxxiv, 1928, pp. 293342.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 53 note 1 V. G. Childe, Prehistory of Scotland, 1935, p. 26.

page 53 note 2 Op. cit., p. 26.

page 53 note 3 The nearest approach to a cemetery in the Clyde province is on Machrie Moor, where five Bronze Age sepulchral circles lie on the raised beach and glacial sand around Moss Farm.

page 54 note 1 Charlesworth, J. K., Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin. lv, 1928, p. 33.Google Scholar

page 54 note 2 G. W. Lamplugh, The Geology of the Isle of Man, Mem. Geol. Survey, 1903, p. 405.

page 56 note 1 For a more detailed study see Smith, Bernard, Q.J.G.S. lxviii, 1912, p. 402.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 58 note 1 Sir Fôn (Anglesey) and Sir Fôn Fach (Little Anglesey) are now linked by alluvial and to a lesser degree by glacial deposits which fill the Malldraeth Marsh-Pentraeth depression. Only a three-mile stretch around the watershed across this depression was untouched by spring tides until the end of the eighteenth century.

page 58 note 2 Edward Greely, The Geology of Anglesey, Mem. Geol. Survey, 1919.

page 58 note 3 Since this paper was written Grimes has classed 83 per cent, of the Neolithic and 72 per cent, of the Bronze Age finds of Anglesey as found on light soils. See Antiquity, xix, 1945, p. 172.

page 59 note 1 W. Ashton, The Evolution of a Coastline, 1920, p. 225.