Earliest Inhabitants
During the last Ice Age, when most of the country was covered by an icecap, low sea levels meant that Ireland was attached to Britain, and Britain to the European continent. As the climate warmed (from about 13,000 BC), and the ice gradually retreated, sea levels rose and the broad land connection between Ireland and Britain began to recede to one or more narrow land bridges. The first human inhabitants arrived over these routes, probably from Scotland, some time after 8000 BC. By about 7000 BC the land bridges were submerged and Ireland geographically isolated, while Britain remained connected to continental Europe for much longer. The first inhabitants, Mesolithic (middle Stone Age) hunter-gatherers, found a densely forested land that could only be penetrated easily along its waterways, and, for the most part, they seem to have lived close to the sea, rivers and lakes (flint work from the period has been found in Antrim, Down, Louth and Dublin). Their way of life continued undisturbed until, from about 3500 BC, Neolithic (late Stone Age) farmers began arriving by sea, probably from Britain. With skills in animal and crop husbandry, weaving and pottery, the new arrivals used their stone axes to clear large tracts of forest for cultivation. The hunter-gatherer and agricultural economies were, however, complementary, and it is thought the two peoples co-existed for many centuries before the older way of life was gradually assimilated by the new. The Neolithic people were the creators of Ireland's megalithic remains . There are more than 1200 such burial sites scattered throughout the country, with the greatest concentrations in the north and west. Such sites are also found all along the Atlantic seaboard of Europe, from Spain to Scandinavia - a sign of Ireland's ancestral and cultural links with the rest of Europe at this time and, in particular, with the peoples of Britain and Brittany. The most dramatic and well-known megalithic remains in Ireland are the great passage graves at Knowth and Newgrange in County Meath, with their elaborate spiral engravings, cut into the stone entirely without the use of metal tools. It is thought that the function of these tombs was not purely religious or ceremonial; they were also territorial markers, which at times of population pressure staked a communal claim to the surrounding lands. Little is known of the people themselves, although their civilization was long-lasting, with thousands of years separating the earliest and the latest megalithic constructions. Only rarely have skeletons been found in the graves (in most cases only the cremated remains of bones are discovered), but what few there have been seem to indicate a short, dark, hairy people with a life expectancy of little more than 35 years. Around 2000 BC the use of bronze spread to Ireland, though it is uncertain whether this was the result of the commercial contacts of the existing population or the migration of a new people. The next significant technological development, generally associated with the arrival of the Celts, was the introduction of iron around 700 BC
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