The Giant’s Grave Wedge Tomb, The Burren Park, Co. Cavan.

The Burren in Co Cavan, where we find the Giants Grave wedge tomb, is an unusual karst landscape, populated with many varied archaeological monuments. The wedge tomb is located in the UNESCO Cuilcagh Lakelands Global Geopark, encompassing an area of important geological and archaeological interest. There is a particular concentration of megalithic tombs in the wider region, and in the Burren itself can be found four wedge tombs, three portal tombs, two court tombs and a further unclassified megalithic tomb (Sam Moore. Archaeology Ireland Vol. 31, No. 1 (Spring 2017), pp. 43-44). Human bone fragments unearthed by a badger from this unclassified tomb not far from the Giants Grave have been dated to 2438 – 2200 BC.

The Giant’s Grave in the Burren is among the category of megalithic monuments known as wedge tombs. Wedge tombs are the youngest of the Irish megalithic monuments and they are also the most numerous of such tombs. There are at least 540 examples of Wedge tombs extant in Ireland, most of them concentrated in the west and north of the country. Many wedge tombs have been lost over the years, however, by quarrying and removal of the stones for development or land clearance. The ground where they had once stood was often ploughed in the past and thus almost all traces of many monuments were destroyed.

The monuments are called wedge tombs because the central gallery tends to narrow and become lower towards the back end of the tomb. Some wedge tombs are quite small when compared to the Giant’s Grave in the Burren, and many do not have a portico, or entrance chamber. And some of the more well-known wedge tombs are also very large, for example up to 14 metres long in the case of Labacallee in Co. Cork.

While there is good evidence for a pre-existing cairn at the Giant’s Grave in the form of inner and outer deposition of small rocks and outer orthostats which could have supported a cairn, not all wedge tombs did have cairns. Nonetheless there is sufficient evidence that many wedge tombs were originally covered, at least to some degree. The wedge tomb at Parknabinnia, Co Clare, for example, still has an amount of stones and a piling of earth, covered in grass, remaining on its capstone, which would have been part of the original covering cairn. There is some evidence that cairns, where they did exist, may not have completely covered monuments. There may have been an element of terraced cairns, or portions of monuments completely covered while other portions remained accessible.  Cairns may have reached only partway up supporting orthostats, or left capstones visible. The presence of and dating of lichens, for example – lichenometry- is one potential indicator that may be used to provide further ideas on this subject. Lichens are immensely long-lived and slow growing and variations in their coverage on monuments may give us some useful evidence about coverage in the future.

Some wedge tombs in Ireland show evidence of having been multi-period constructions, so we should keep in mind that the structure of these tombs may have been significantly altered over the time of their use, and this is before we consider the profound interference with prehistoric structures that would have occurred from amateur excavations in the more recent centuries and later wholesale removal of materials for local building or land clearance purposes.

Cup marks are commonly found as decorative features on wedge tombs, some of them even occurring internally in the burial spaces. The inward pointing nature of such cup marks on some tombs gives rise to speculation about its intent as symbolic instructions for the dead. Cup and ring marks are a form of prehistoric art which have been found almost everywhere on earth, but they are particularly prevalent in Atlantic seaboard regions. Some theorise that they are representative of solar symbols, others of breasts, or indeed some suggest that they were part of blood rituals and used for fluid collection. They could have been astronomical maps or alignment charts, boundary maps, the marks/insignia of the monuments masons or they could simply have been imaginative doodlings. Obviously, the motif of cup and ring marks varies greatly in levels of artistic rendering and expertise and local makers may have simply been attempting imitations of much more expert art works they had seen at other ritual sites.

Communal burial seems to have been an important feature of the rites occurring during the Neolithic period. Gradually individual burials began to occur more commonly. In some cases, the wedge tombs received their initial depositions of unburnt or cremated remains and were then sealed. Both cremation and unburnt inhumation seems to have existed contemporaneously as burial rites.  In other cases, there were further burials of cremated remains, or further depositions, and the tombs were thus kept accessible. Human remains may even have been moved from one tomb to another in some instances, as perhaps some sort of tour of the relics of notable ancestors. Token deposits of cremated remains seems to have been practiced and there is evidence from an investigation of dates on materials from Altar in Cork by Professor O Brien that ritual depositions of food, for example fish and shell-fish, occurred over much later and successive time periods than the occurrence of original funerary depositions. (Waddell pg. 108).

Burial in wedge tombs appears to have been confined to certain individuals within the kinship group –  not all members of a clan were interred in such tombs. At the time that wedge tombs were being built in Ireland older megalithic tombs were also being re-used for burial purposes and complex societal change was occurring with the arrival of the Beaker culture, metallurgy and intensified agriculture.

Gallery tombs were being built in Europe about 5000 years ago and it is quite possible this custom spread to Ireland and led to the commencement of the construction of wedge tombs from approximately 2540 to 2300 BC. Some researchers note, however, that there are differences in the methods and forms of construction of the Irish tombs when compared to European examples, and some posit the idea that wedge tomb building in Ireland was an indigenous development. For example, many of the French allée couvertes are orientated eastwards, and they do not tend towards the lowering of the back end of the monument. Against this argument is the fact that wedge tomb building seems to have been something that started quite suddenly in Ireland after several hundred years of very little megalithic tomb building at all, and this supports the idea of influence from abroad, either through inward migrations or from local contacts with practices abroad.

It is proposed and often supported by evidence that wedge tombs occurred in areas of rich agricultural land, and in areas where copper was mined. For example, there is a concentration of wedge tombs near Sligo which may correspond to the mining of copper ore near Lough Gill. The timing of these monuments appears to be concurrent with the intensification of agriculture and the emergence of the Copper Age. Evidence exists for the role of the Bell Beaker culture in transmission of knowledge of metallurgy in the areas where they migrated, for example the discoveries by Professor William O Brien regarding Beaker Bronze Age copper mines in Killarney. Professor O Brien has written about the association between these earliest mining communities and the construction of megalithic wedge tombs. And about the implications of these mining industries, agricultural changes and megalith construction for the organization of social and community life for kin groups and clans at this period in our history.

Professor William O Brien has also dated unburnt bone from several wedge tombs – a sample of bone from an unburned female at Labbacallee, Co. Cork  was dated to 2456-2138 BCE, samples from 9 burials at Lough Gur, Co. Limerick were dated to 2500-2000 BCE and a human tooth, from O’Brien’s own excavation at Altar, Co Cork  was dated to 2316-1784 BCE. (Waddell 1998, 92-101)

The Bell Beaker culture or complex arose in the European Bronze Age around 2800 BC. It was typified by a form of pottery that was common in the culture – inverted bell-shaped drinking vessels with geometric markings of various sorts.  The Bell Beaker cultural influence dispersed widely, with at least some migration especially along rivers and by sea, including to Ireland and the United Kingdom. This marked a period of change from the relative cultural isolation of the people who had been living in Ireland during the Neolithic. It is theorised that at least some Bell Beaker people came in search of copper and rare raw materials. The Beaker people were highly mobile artisans and experts in metallurgy who exerted considerable and immediate influence on the places to which they came. We do not know exactly if the bulk of the influence, which would have included ideas about how the world is, came about as a result of small migrations of elite Beaker people or as a result of cultural contact with such groups. Most likely both scenarios occurred, as areas which were influenced by Bell Beaker complex activities did not necessarily show a big change in genetics, as has been more recently discovered. Wherever they went or passed on their influence elsewhere in Europe, the Beaker burial rites tended towards individual inhumations with weapon deposits, whereas prior to that the more general Neolithic tradition had been for collective burial without deposition of weaponry.

In 1885 remains of Bell Beaker pottery were found in the Moytirra West Wedge Tomb in Co. Sligo. This monument was also called a Giants Grave and was named as such in the 1914 Ordinance Survey maps of the area. This tomb continues to have a surrounding cairn covering some portions. In Moytirra, early excavations in the 19^th century uncovered an intact skeleton, buried in a crouched position, alongside a 12-inch piece of bronze, possibly a weapon. A later excavation in 1885 dug to about 6 foot and found two separate interments of fragmentary skeletons, two adults in one burial and two adults and a child in another. Alongside these interments were the fragments of Beaker culture pottery. The condition of the remains indicated that the tomb had been rummaged through previously. The presence of this Beaker ware contributes further to the evidence for a relationship between Irish Wedge tombs and the Beaker culture.

Depositions in wedge tombs have included, in addition to the above mentioned Beaker pottery but not exhaustively, fragments of coarse wear pottery, flint scrapers, chert flakes, barbed and tanged arrowheads, a bone pin, a stone spindle whorl, a schist axe head, sea shells, animal bones, fish bones, perforated stone discs, hammerstones,  weapons moulds, and Professor O’ Brien’s excavation of a wedge tomb in Toormore, Co Cork produced a decorated bronze flat axe and two pieces of raw copper. Metal finds have been limited in wedge tombs, though elsewhere metal finds include a bone dagger mount, a fragment of worked bronze, a copper ring, a bronze blade fragment, and the bronze blade from Moytirra. (William O’Brien, Peter Northover and Esther Cameron The Journal of Irish Archaeology. Vol. 5 (1989/1990), pp. 9-17). The Toormore hoard may have been a votive deposition associated with a local metal-working community.

Wedge tombs may not have functioned solely as burial places. Their imposing size and structure and their prominent locations in the landscape attest to the likelihood that they also functioned as spaces where communities gathered, and held discourses and ceremonies. They were likely viewed as symbolic structures, being so permanent, solid and enduring in lives otherwise shaped by uncertainty and inevitable ephemerality.  Quartz pebbles have been found in excavations associated with wedge tombs and may have functioned as offerings or as items of religious significance. The general orientation of the tombs entrances towards the setting sun, the dwindling light, symbolizing the inevitability of death after life, solidifies the likelihood of the tombs being places of ritual connection to not only the notable ancestors of one’s kin-group but also to supernatural realms or unseen forces.  It is likely they were also seen as symbols of communal solidarity, evidence of the technical expertise of the kin group, and reminders of the clan’s duty of ritual obligation to tradition and forebears.

It was a custom in the 18^th and 19^th century to romanticize the megalithic tombs, especially wedge tombs, as being druidic altars. This may not be entirely off the mark as the tombs likely did function as ceremonial sites and some wedge tombs, indeed, functioned in much later years as places of worship and devotion. Some such places have been called altars in their local naming, and some functioned as Christian Mass Rocks during Penal times.

The tombs could also have functioned as territorial markers or indicators of boundaries. In some places in Co Clare the wedge tombs are so close to each other as to possibly indicate battles over land ownership and claims that encompassed ever-shrinking clan territory. Whether this is so or not, megalithic monuments like the wedge tombs certainly would have dominated local landscapes, especially tombs such as the Giants Grave in the Burren which is part of an alignment of several wedge tombs, all built on dominant spurs in the landscape that would have been visible to communities living within their areas of influence. Not only were the megalithic builders concerned with honouring the past and the dead, and maintaining a ceremonial life in the present, but by the very enduring nature of their constructions they were also, it seems, determined to be remembered long into the future.