The Adoption of Agriculture in Ireland: Perceptions of Key Research Challenges
- PDF / 329,701 Bytes
- 27 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 61 Downloads / 138 Views
The Adoption of Agriculture in Ireland: Perceptions of Key Research Challenges Graeme Warren
# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012
Abstract This paper outlines the results of a project carried out 2007–2008 providing oversight of key challenges in the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition in Ireland as understood by those researching the period. The project involved interviews with practitioners from a variety of fields in order to obtain qualitative data. The resulting synthesis is not a ‘consensus’ statement of priorities, but a reflection of a very diverse research field. Given that the project took place at a time of considerable change in Irish archaeology, the strengths and weaknesses of research into the Mesolithic– Neolithic transition are of broader relevance. Keywords Mesolithic–Neolithic transition . Ireland . Research history . Research problems
Background The transition to agriculture is widely regarded as a fundamental watershed in human history and has been a major focus for archaeological research. Models of the transition to agriculture reveal our understandings of the modern world: with farming often being associated with sedentism, urban life, population growth etc. (for discussion, see Finlayson and Warren 2010). The importance of the transition is reflected in both the diversity of explanations proposed and the range of evidence cited. In fact, for Fischer and Kristiansen (2002, 1) … its research history is also the history of the development and integration of natural science with archaeology. It represents the birth of ecological archaeology. But in a wider perspective it was part of the birth of modern times and a new perception of history and science…
G. Warren (*) UCD School of Archaeology, Newman Building, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin, Ireland e-mail: [email protected]
Warren
The study of the adoption of agriculture can therefore be seen as a microcosm of the development of modern archaeology. It includes substantial contributions from, amongst others, field archaeology, archaeological science, palaeoenvironmental studies, palaeolinguistics, ancient and modern DNA and the development of relevant theory through ethnoarchaeology and comparative anthropology. This variety of competing evidence and hypotheses can lead to difficulties. Cooney highlights the ‘parallel worlds’ created by different analytical approaches based on diverse and limited data sources: the cumulative effect is that approaches to the problem sometimes seem to run on parallel tracks, rather than informing and being informed by other strands of the discussion. This has resulted in a fragmentation of the discourse and the presentation of very different and partial views of the transition, even in the consideration of particular regions or dimensions of the evidence (Cooney 2007a, 543–544) These parallel worlds are most obviously seen in the sometimes difficult relationships between those using genetic evidence and those using traditional archaeological approaches (e.g. Bradley and Hill 2000; Cooney
Data Loading...
