Posted on 07/28/2008 7:24:09 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
The possibility of a Palaeolithic human presence in Ireland has once again presented itself. A flaked flint dating to about 200,000 years ago found in Co Down is certainly of human workmanship, but its ultimate origin remains uncertain.
Discovered at Ballycullen, ten miles east of Belfast, the flake is 68mm long and wide and 31mm thick. Its originally dark surface is heavily patinated to a yellowish shade, and the lack of sharpness in its edges suggests that it has been rolled around by water or ice, Jon Stirland reports in Archaeology Ireland.
Dr Farina Sternke has identified it as a classic Levallois-type flake from the rejuvenation of a flint core; such flakes are characteristic of stone-tool industries made by archaic humans of the pre-Neanderthal era, as technology moved towards making multiple flakes from one core and then trimming them into a variety of different tool types.
The date assigned of between 240,000 and 180,000 years matches a similar flake discovered by the late Professor Frank Mitchell near Drogheda, Co Louth, 40 years ago, which has until now been the only uncontested Palaeolithic tool from Ireland.
The problem, as with the Drogheda flake, lies in the context: the Ballycullen specimen was shown to have come from a drumlin mound, deposited by glacial activity. The last such activity in Co Down was about 16,000 years ago, and the ice sheet had spread west from Scotland.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
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Thanks for posting. Another piece that adds to our knowledge of history. Fascinating.
At first I thought you were talking about Flint, MI.
Thanks!
[singing] we’re an American band, we’re an American band...
The Neandertal EnigmaFrayer's own reading of the record reveals a number of overlooked traits that clearly and specifically link the Neandertals to the Cro-Magnons. One such trait is the shape of the opening of the nerve canal in the lower jaw, a spot where dentists often give a pain-blocking injection. In many Neandertal, the upper portion of the opening is covered by a broad bony ridge, a curious feature also carried by a significant number of Cro-Magnons. But none of the alleged 'ancestors of us all' fossils from Africa have it, and it is extremely rare in modern people outside Europe." [pp 126-127]
by James Shreeve
So, this flint stuff, is it pre or post Firbolg?
Very pre-
:’)
Flint?
Looks as if he’s in like it.
Nemedian pre, or Partholon pre?
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