- Chapter Thirty-Three -
as showing the continuity of bronzeworking traditions in the new metal. Such a
transitional phase is perhaps best illustrated at the second occupation level uncovered
at crann6g 61, Rathtinaun, Lough Gara, Co. Sligo. This followed a primary level of
wholly late bronze age character and was culturally indistinguishable from the latter
apart from the presence in Level 2 of five iron artefacts G. Raftery 1972). Of these, a
shafthole axehead was most interesting (Raftery 1983, no. 583) for, though clumsily
assembled from three forged iron plates, it nonetheless displays no small measure of
technical skill, not least of which is the seemingly deliberate carburization of the
blade to harden the cutting edge (Figure 33.1) (Scott 1991 : 52-5).
The earliest Iron Age in Ireland is thus more properly regarded as merely an
incipient Iron Age, a product of outside contacts and sporadic experimentation with
the new metal by indigenous craftsmen. No population change is implied by the
archaeological evidence. The transition from bronzesmith to blacksmith was slow
and halting and doubtless it was the former who for a long time held sway.
In the centuries after about 600 Be major changes appear to have taken place in
Ireland, changes which may well have been dramatic. The thriving and innovative
industries of the later Bronze Age cease production and Ireland, as far as we can tell,
lapses into a dark age. The causative factors responsible for this decline continue to
elude us but climatic, social and economic reasons have variously been offered to
explain the changes. The possibility that there was an upsurge of hill-fort construction
at this time could well be significant. At any rate the country lapsed into
a phase of introspective isolation preoccupied with its own internal crisis. Hallstatt D
t.
.!..-.:-:' ..... :::. :..Figure 33.1 Iron axehead, crann6g 61, Rathtinaun, Co. Sligo.