Island Quarries, Island Axeheads, and the Neolithic of Ireland and Britain

Abstract

A notable feature of the Neolithic Period (4,000-2,500 cal B.C.) of northwest Europe is the exploitation of lithic sources on islands for the production of stone axeheads and other artifacts. This article focuses on three such islands: 1) Rathlin in the North Channel off the northeast coast of Ireland, 2) the island group of Shetland between the North Atlantic and the North Sea, and 3) the island of Lambay off the east coast of Ireland. This work provides support for the importance of insular axehead sources during the Neolithic. The quarries on these islands and the pattern of the distribution of their products provide evidence of quite different scales and organization of quarrying activity and extent of distribution of products from the quarries and hence types of social networks.