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The winter solstice sunrise will stream live this year from inside the passage tomb of Newgrange. The winter solstice is an astronomical phenomenon marking the shortest day and the longest night of the year, occurring on December 21st or 22nd in the Northern Hemisphere. At sunrise on the shortest day of the year, for 17 minutes, direct sunlight can enter the Newgrange monument to illuminate the chamber of the Stone Age tomb through a small opening above its entrance known as the ‘roof box’. With the chamber currently closed to the public in light of Covid-19, the event can be...

"One of the individuals - a little boy actually - ...had three copies of Chromosome 21. So, he would have had Down syndrome. And, yeah, that was unexpected and quite a moving little glimpse into the world of somebody with a disability in the very, very deep past," Cassidy said. The research team puts the discovery at between 4,000 and 6,000 years old, making it the oldest known case of Down's Syndrome in the world... "What we do, basically, is we powderise that [the petrous temporal bone in the inner ear] and we put the powder in solution and try...

Newgrange is a prehistoric passage tomb in County Meath, Ireland. built during the Neolithic period around 3200 BC and predates monuments such as Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids. The site consists of a circular mount with retaining walls and contains stone passages and chambers where human remains have been discovered on previous archaeology excavations by antiquarians from the 18th century. Normally we inherit two copies of the genome, one from each parent, but the individual buried in the chamber had genomes that were remarkably similar, suggesting that his parents were first-degree relatives and are a key indicator of inbreeding... Dan...

A brief moment of wonder awaits a few lucky people who see the winter solstice sunrise in Newgrange, Co Meath, Ireland, reports Sophie Campbell. If you put your head on the floor of the burial chamber at Newgrange, Ireland's most famous passage tomb, rest your cheek on the soft grit and look back down the slightly wonky passage of upright stone slabs, you can see a wigwam of light at the end. This is the entrance, which faces south-east over the wide, shallow valley of the River Boyne and a ridge called Red Mountain. If you are lucky enough to...

An underwater archaeological reconnaissance of the bed of the River Boyne near the Brú na Bóinne complex in Co Meath has revealed features that may represent log boats or man-made quays, a research conference was told on Saturday. The sonar study, carried out by Annalisa Christie of University College Dublin and Dr Kieran Westley of University of Ulster, surveyed 10km of the river from Oldbridge to a weir 1.8km east of Slane Bridge... Christie said 100 "anomalous features" were revealed in the study and these were assessed and classified according to how likely they were to have been created as...

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DUBLIN (Reuters) - Atlantis, the legendary island nation over whose existence controversy has raged for thousands of years, was actually Ireland, according to a new theory by a Swedish scientist. Atlantis, the Greek philosopher Plato wrote in 360 BC, was an island in the Atlantic Ocean where an advanced civilization developed some 11,500 years ago until it was hit by a cataclysmic natural disaster and sank beneath the waves. Geographer Ulf Erlingsson, whose book explaining his theory will be published next month, says the measurements, geography, and landscape of Atlantis as described by Plato match Ireland almost exactly. "I am...

An archaeologists analysis on how the construction of megalithic monuments in Atlantic Europe are not restricted to a single purpose, nor how they reflect one aspect of the community that built them... well-rounded evidence for practical and symbolic components of the early agricultural lifestyle within the Neolithic. Depictions in the architecture of these structures explore complex symbolism and the socio-ritual interactions where monuments offer places for gatherings... Megalithic monuments of Atlantic Europe have long attracted attention from those who are interested in the early past of mankind. The word megalith originates from the Greek, meaning ‘great stone’ and is used...

Our ancient Irish ancestors carved images of an ancient eclipse into giant stones over 5,000 years ago, on November 30, 3340 BC to be exact. This is the oldest known recorded solar eclipse in history. The illustrations are found on the Stone Age "Cairn L," on Carbane West, at Loughcrew, outside Kells, in County Meath. The landscape of rolling hills is littered with Neolithic monuments. Some say that originally there were at least 40 to 50 monuments, but others say the figure was more like 100... Martin Brennan and Jack Roberts discovered that the sun illuminates this chamber on the...

Researchers Say Gardom’s Edge Monolith Is Astronomical Marker A team of researchers from the Nottingham Trent University has suggested that a 4000-year-old unique triangular shaped monolith, known as the Gardom’s Edge monolith, was aligned to be an astronomical marker. The 2.2 meter high monolith, located in the Peak District National Park near Manchester, UK, has a striking, right-angled triangular shape that slants up towards geographic south. The orientation and inclination of the slope is aligned to the altitude of the Sun at mid-summer. The team believes that the monolith was set in place to give symbolic meaning to the location...

An Impact Event in 3114BC? The Beginning of a Turbulent Millennium. Recurring Phenomenon: The Cosmic DisasterThe Mayan CalendarStonehengeA Possible Source for the 3100 BC Event Collected and commented by Timo Niroma, Helsinki, Finland Go to the Evidence of Astronomical Aspects of Mankind's Past and Recent Climate Homepage Recurring Phenomenon: The Cosmic Disaster Besides the most evident cosmic catastrophes ca. 2200 BC and 2345 BC there are other events during the Holocene that are so widely global and difficult to explain by only the Earth's own mechanisms that a cosmic explanation must evidently be taken into account. The first so-called...

Boomtime for ancient Ireland traced to Sligo 16 July 2004 Archaeologists are finally in agreement that the Megalithic period in Ireland 'boomed' between the years 4200BC and 3500BC. The date controversy over the Irish Megalithic period - most significantly characterised by the Carrowmore site in Sligo - was put to rest at an archaeology conference in Sligo. The findings of the conference have just been released even though it took place two years ago. The Carrowmore site has one of the largest concentrations of Megalithic tombs in Western Europe. It pre-dates the Newgrange and Boyne complex and is older than...

Maeshowe winter solstice as viewed by Neolithic man CAROLINE WICKHAM-JONESMaeshowe winter solstice as viewed by Neolithic manMaeshowe is managed by Historic Scotland. Picture: Charles Tait Photographic THE GREAT mound of Maeshowe has dominated the skyline of Orkney for almost 5,000 years. It is a spectacular sight and a visit to the chambered tomb provides one of the highlights for visitors to the Orkney islands. Today, as we stoop to enter and walk down the low 11 metre passage to the chamber with its massive stonework, we are reminded of the ingenuity of those original builders. Its apparent uniformity masks a...

London - Red hair may be the genetic legacy of Neanderthals, according to a new study by British scientists. Researchers at the John Radcliffe Institute of Molecular Medicine in Oxford were quoted by The Times as saying the so-called "ginger gene" which gives people red hair, fair skin and freckles could be up to 100 000 years old. They claim that their discovery points to the gene having originated in Neanderthal man who lived in Europe for 200 000 years before Homo sapien settlers, the ancestors of modern man, arrived from Africa about 40 000 years ago. Rosalind Harding, the...

Friday, June 11, 2004 By Marion O’MaraViking ‘town’ is Ireland’s equivalent of Pompeii IT’S likely to be some weeks yet before Minister for the Environment Martin Cullen announces recommendations for dealing with and possibly preserving what historians are now describing as Ireland’s first town. The discovery of the Viking settlement, at Woodstown, five miles from the city, which is believed to date back to the mid-9th century, was made as preparatory work got underway on the city’s €300m by-pass. The site, located close to the River Suir, is 1.5 km long by 0.5 km wide and so far up to...

Graveyard yields secrets of ancient world By Shane Harrison BBC NI Dublin Correspondent Residents of the village of Nobber, north Meath, in the Republic of Ireland, stumbled upon archaeological treasure when they decided to clean up an old graveyard. Now they are hoping that tombs in the shape of Celtic crosses, dating back 1100 years, will put them on the map, alongside such famous archaeological sites as Newgrange. The old graveyard at Nobber, North Meath Until recently, the graveyard in the village of Nobber, about two hours' drive from Dublin, was overgrown with weeds and briars. It is surrounded by...

My family is considering a trip to Ireland in 2004. I'm looking for advice on who to book the trip with and any experiences anyone had on their trips.

Details of the “first passage-tomb to be discovered in in Boyne Valley in 200 years” have been reported in the Sept 7 edition of the Meath Chronicle. It was discovered by the Heritage Council Funded ‘Boyne Valley Landscapes Project’, a collaborative research project led by researchers from University College Dublin (Dr Stephen Davis and Dr Will Megarry) and Dundalk Institute of Technology (Dr Conor Brady). The newly discovered passage-tomb, on the floodplain of the Boyne southwest of Newgrange, had showed up in the lidar surface as a low rise, a mere 25cm high and 30m across, surrounded by a barely...

Right now, about 4 hours until winter solstice! The days get longer from here on out - even if they initially get colder! Happy winter solstice 2014!

The recent heatwave in the UK and Ireland has uncovered ancient archaeological sites that, in some cases, have never been seen before. One such discovery is a henge, or circular enclosure, located 1km from the famous Irish megalithic passage tomb, Newgrange. The henge was discovered by historian Anthony Murphy of Mythical Ireland, who was flying his drone over the Boyne Valley when he spotted a circular shape in the field. It is estimated that this henge was built some 5000 years ago. ... snip ... These new discoveries include a Roman fortlet near Magor, which emerged in ripening crops, and...