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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2015
In 1960 there appeared two important studies devoted to the Neolithic gallery graves of Ireland, hitherto considered to be part of the Clyde–Carlingford culture, as defined by Childe and Piggott. The first, by Professor de Valera, is of unique importance: it records and discusses a mass of new evidence for the Irish gallery graves, and advances an entirely fresh theory for their origin and evolution. Dr Corcoran defines and isolates the elements of the Carlingford culture, and argues for its acceptance in its own right, as distinct from the Clyde-Solway culture.
De Valera's paper contains an inventory of 269 sites. No fewer than 152 are planned, of which 97 are new surveys. All the plans are to a small but uniform scale of 3/1000, which greatly simplifies comparisons. Most of the hitherto unrecorded sites are in Connaught, Sligo and Mayo, where de Valera has worked as Archaeology Officer to the Ordnance Survey.
1 S. Piggott, Neolithic Cultures of the British Isles, 1954, 152 ff.
2 P.P.S., III, 1937, 348.
3 Op. cit., 160, 181.
4 P.S.A.S., LXXXIX, 1955–56, 47–49.
5 Scot. Geo. Mag., L, 1934, 18–25.
6 If, as A. E. P. Collins seems to imply in Ulster J.A., N.S. XX, 1957, 8–28, the slab-built cist in the round cairn at Knockiveagh, Down, is original, then a C14 date of 3060 ± 170 B.C. (D-37) must be admitted for this type of structure: ANTIQUITY, XXXIV, 1960, 112.
7 De Valera sees a Severn-Cotswold connexion in five Mayo sites with transepted galleries; elsewhere, however, evidence for the transepted gallery in the north seems to be lacking.
8 P.S.A.S., LXXXIX, 1955–56, 22–54.
9 Ulster J.A., N.S. XVII, 1954, 7–56, and XXII, 1959, 21–27.
10 G. Daniel, The Prehistoric Chamber Tombs of France, 1960, 198.
