July 2012 NUI Galway Workshop on Earliest Farming in Sligo and Germany

NUI Galway archaeologists and pollen analysts recently participated in a three-day specialist workshop at Kiel University on Neolithic landscapes in Sligo and Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. During the workshop the latest results, generated during the course of a joint Kiel-NUI Galway four-year programme of research, were presented and discussed.

The new results, based mainly on detailed investigations of lake cores, provide fresh insights into the earliest farming economies, the changing intensity of farming through time and impacts on the natural environment in both regions. NUI Galway participants included Dr Stefan Bergh and Professor Michael O’Connell, and PhD students Ed Danaher and Beatrice Ghilardi, who are working towards doctorates on various aspects of the Neolithic in Sligo. An overview of the archaeology of Sligo was provided by the Sligo archaeologist, Martin Timoney.

According to Professor O’Connell, “The new research, funded by the German Science Foundation, Kiel University and NUI Galway, the results of which are already partly published, will ultimately provide one of the most detailed records of early farming available in these islands.”

Pictured is Dr Ingo Feeser, who gained his doctorate at NUI Galway and is now a postdoctoral researcher at Kiel University, presenting his latest data on long-term environmental change at Lake Belau, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany.

More information is available from Professor Michael O’Connell, Palaeoenvironmental Research Unit, School of Geography and Archaeology, NUI Galway, on 086 3891444 or michael.oconnell@nuigalway.ie.

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