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A New Dimension to Ancient Measures - from many years of research and fieldwork

A New Dimension to Ancient Measures - from many years of research and fieldwork

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<< Our Photo Pages >> Céide Fields - Ancient Village or Settlement in Ireland (Republic of) in Co. Mayo

Submitted by bat400 on Sunday, 08 November 2009  Page Views: 15795

Multi-periodSite Name: Céide Fields Alternative Name: Achaidh Chéide, Ceide Fields
Country: Ireland (Republic of)
NOTE: This site is 6.077 km away from the location you searched for.

County: Co. Mayo Type: Ancient Village or Settlement
Nearest Town: Ballycastle
Map Ref: G052408
Latitude: 54.307175N  Longitude: 9.457143W
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
no data Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
no data Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
4 Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
3

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Andy B visited on 16th Feb 2011 Featured in Episode Two of BBC's History of Ancient Britain with Neil Oliver

Céide Fields
Céide Fields submitted by Creative Commons : Ceide Fields Visitor Centre Innovative design for the Visitor Centre, containing archaeological and geological information on the site, which is the largest stone age field system known. The stone walls have been covered by blanket bog for over 4000 years. Copyright Liz McCabe and licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons Licence. (Vote or comment on this photo)
A neolithic field system and settlement site, dating back to 3000 BC or earlier.
A peat bog preserved the remains of small houses, extensive field systems, and tombs. The settlement was discovered in the 1930's, but only excavated in the 1970's.

Official web site of the award winning Visitor Centre.

Note: See comment for excerpts of a review from the Vancouver Courier
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Céide Fields
Céide Fields submitted by Creative Commons : After being left undisturbed for thousands of years, the stone walls of Neolithic fields and farm enclosures have been discovered. A house enclosure is shown in the picture with the visitors' centre on the left and Downpatrick Head in the far distance. Copyright Bob Embleton and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Céide Fields
Céide Fields submitted by Flickr : The stones revealed Céide Fields Ballycastle Co. Mayo, Ireland. Image copyright: Drumstudio Photography (David R Murphy), hosted on Flickr and displayed under the terms of their API. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Céide Fields
Céide Fields submitted by Flickr : Ceide Fields Image copyright: quadralectics (Marten Kuilman), hosted on Flickr and displayed under the terms of their API. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Céide Fields
Céide Fields submitted by Flickr : Visitor centre displays Image copyright: agy.aggie, hosted on Flickr and displayed under the terms of their API. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Céide Fields
Céide Fields submitted by Flickr : Ancient Scots pine tree - carbon date shows it was growing about 4,000 years ago. Céide Fields, Mayo, Ireland Image copyright: catb -, hosted on Flickr and displayed under the terms of their API. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Céide Fields
Céide Fields submitted by Flickr : Inside the visitor centre Image copyright: agy.aggie, hosted on Flickr and displayed under the terms of their API.

Céide Fields
Céide Fields submitted by Flickr : Ceide Fields Image copyright: Runcible Girl, hosted on Flickr and displayed under the terms of their API.

Céide Fields
Céide Fields submitted by Flickr : Ceide Fields Image copyright: alanaplin (Alan Aplin), hosted on Flickr and displayed under the terms of their API.

Céide Fields
Céide Fields submitted by Flickr : Inside the visitor centre Image copyright: astott70 (Anne-Marie Stott), hosted on Flickr and displayed under the terms of their API.

Céide Fields
Céide Fields submitted by Flickr : Unesco world heritage site - Ceide Fields (Céide Fields) is the world's most extensive stone age site. Fascinating to visit. Image copyright: Wayne W G, hosted on Flickr and displayed under the terms of their API.

Céide Fields
Céide Fields submitted by Flickr : >Bog tree, Ceide Fields, Co. Mayo Image copyright: kewing (Keith Ewing), hosted on Flickr and displayed under the terms of their API.

Céide Fields
Céide Fields submitted by Flickr : Now obsolete, the word céide means 'high field', so the name of the region gave the first hint of its history. Here are the Ceide Fields in North County Mayo. There is evidence of a field system dating back over 5000 years. Image copyright: Gaeilge Bheo (Fergal Jennings), hosted on Flickr and displayed under the terms of their API.

Céide Fields
Céide Fields submitted by Flickr : Ceide fields Image copyright: JimmyPierce (Jimmy Pierce), hosted on Flickr and displayed under the terms of their API.

Céide Fields
Céide Fields submitted by Flickr : Ceide fields Image copyright: skippyjon2010 (jonny lennox), hosted on Flickr and displayed under the terms of their API.

Céide Fields
Céide Fields submitted by Creative Commons : Ceide Fields Visitor Centre: an exhibit showing how stone age villagers built the stone walls that lie hidden beneath the bog Copyright Liz McCabe and licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons Licence.

Céide Fields
Céide Fields submitted by Creative Commons : Ancient tree. A Scots pine, excavated from under the bog after 4000 years Copyright Liz McCabe and licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons Licence.

Céide Fields
Céide Fields submitted by Creative Commons : Ceide Fields Neolithic Site Steps leading into the site from the visitor centre. Uncovered remains of field walls and dwellings can be seen on the tour. Copyright A McCarron and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

Céide Fields
Céide Fields submitted by Creative Commons : Entrance to Ceide Fields Visitor Centre. An archaeological site of major importance. Copyright Oliver Dixon and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

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Nearby sites listing. In the following links * = Image available
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"Céide Fields" | Login/Create an Account | 2 News and Comments
  
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The Céide Fields: a Mayo miracle older than the pyramids by Andy B on Friday, 01 March 2019
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The very fact that beneath the wild heathery bogs of north Mayo lies the most extensive Stone Age monument in the world is both humbling and hard to grasp. The idea that we can walk in the steps of our ancestors from 5,000 years ago, following along old barley ridges where they would once have cast their seeds and knelt to weed their precious crops is a cause of wonder.

The intricate remains of their prehistoric farming lives – fields, cattle byres and burials tombs – lie perfectly cossetted in peat moss across thousands of acres of Mayo between Ballycastle and Belmullet, and we can visit them at any time to reorient ourselves and remind ourselves who and what we really were 2,000 years before the pyramids were ever built.

The story behind the discovery of this lost world is as magical as any Hollywood movie. The local schoolmaster, Patrick Caulfield from Belderrig, noticed piles of stones in long lines deep beneath the peat when cutting turf in the 1930s. It dawned on him that since the walls must predate the bog, they had to be truly ancient, and he wrote to inform the National Museum in Dublin, but during the war years they couldn’t spare the petrol to drive west to investigate.

It was 40 years later before Patrick’s son, Seamas, graduated as an archaeologist and began to explore further, using iron probes (traditionally used for finding ancient trees under deep bog) to follow the tracks of the walls over many acres deep beneath the earth. Carbon-dating later proved the site dated from 200 generations earlier, and revealed a picture of a highly organised, peaceful community working together to clear vast swathes of forestry and divide the land into regular field systems.

More at
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/the-c%C3%A9ide-fields-a-mayo-miracle-older-than-the-pyramids-1.3168769
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World's most extensive Neolithic site found in peat bog by bat400 on Sunday, 08 November 2009
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Vancouver Courier article submitted by coldrum.

It took 40 years, but Seamas Caulfield finally solved the puzzle of his father's peat bog, and in the process unearthed a 5,000-year-old Stone Age village. Schoolteacher Patrick Caulfield was digging peat in a bog in the 1930s when his spade struck rocks two metres down.

He cleared the immediate area and discovered that the rocks formed part of a wall. "He had the feeling that it was a significant find and he wrote telling about it to the National Museum in Dublin," says Gretta Byrne. "He received an encouraging letter, but they couldn't investigate because they didn't have the resources."

What had that peat spade struck? The riddle fascinated young Seamas. He grew up and became an archeologist, and as Ireland came out of the economic doldrums he led an archeological expedition to the peat bog on what's called the Ceide Fields (pronounced "kay-jeh").

What they unearthed has been called the most extensive Neolithic site in the world, a farming community dating back to before 3,000 B.C.

Now a state-of-the-art visitor centre has been built on the site to showcase the Ceide Fields dig. Byrne is the manager. She takes a visitor on a walk over part of the site, on a cliff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, pointing out stone-walled fields, livestock enclosures, dwellings and tombs.

Archeologists think the Stone Age community covers 10 square kilometres. Because the bog it sits under is 90 per cent water, they've been able to push iron rods through the peat and locate dozens of kilometres of stone field walls. But only a fraction of what's believed to be there has been excavated, so the curious get a much better "feel" of the ancient settlement from the galleries in the visitor centre.

These explain that the people who lived here were farmers and fishermen. They were peaceful people, it appears, for the community is well spread out, "not huddled together as they would be if they were fearful of attack," archeologist Caulfield says in an introductory video.

"We believe they lived here for about 500 years," says Byrne. Why they left is a mystery (global cooling is one theory). But after they went, forests and other vegetation grew, then died and decayed, creating, through the eons, the two- to four-metre deep blanket of peat bog.

In the galleries are recreations of Stone Age buildings, showing manikins doing such things as milling flour and tending livestock.

For the complete article by Mitchell Smyth, see the Vancouver Courier.
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