Landscapes of Neolithic Ireland

by Gabriel Cooney

Landscapes of Neolithic is the first volume to be devoted solely to the Irish Neolithic, using an innovative landscape and anthropological perspective to provide significant new insights on the period.

Genres: Archaeology, Nonfiction, History, Prehistory

296 pages, Paperback

First published December 2, 1999

Reviews

[John Sgammato · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've long been fascinated by the earliest stages of civilization and the difficulties of gaining information from potsherds and bones. Cooney's book does an excellent job of setting out the boundaries of the problem to be dealt with in the book, and then addressing them comprehensively and with many endnotes to interesting other works on the subject (although it is almost 20 years old).
I did find the section on stone axes to be a bit unfinished. It seemed to be worked into this book from earlier papers, but it was not integrated well enough. By that I mean I felt a clear transition in the writing to a less engaging, drier voice and a wider geographical scope. There was also too little exposition of the importance of the stone axe studies and especially about why porcellanite was so strongly represented throughout Ireland but no so well in Scotland.
OK, that's not much of a gripe. I really enjoyed reading it; I recommend it to anyone who digs Irish archaeology.

[Rhiannon Grant · Rating 4 out of 5]

A clear and interesting book with an emphasis on the complexity, local and regional scale of change, and nuancing timelines. Cooney is a splitter not a lumper! He gives a good overview of the evidence for Neolithic Ireland and works hard to distinguish archaeological assumptions and modern experiences from what can genuinely be known or guessed about prehistoric lives.

[Abigail Myers]

This is a scholarly work and not for a general audience, so I'm the wrong person to review it, but I was able to tease out a few threads that interested me nonetheless.