JouR.N'At. oF nm couNTY ooNEGAL :iiis'.i'o;a.rnA:L socmT'i. 29 dunes are ever shifting in the winds which often make hollows as deep as fifty feet. In the sides of this hollow is to be seen a black stratum. This ls the old shore level and here are contained the relics left behind by the old inhabitants. When this drops to the floor level the sand particles are blown away, and the implements drop· to the bottom of the pit where they accumulate." "The hearths are identified as such by the burnt condition of the stones com1prising them and by the accumulation of ashes around them. .The ashes of fires blown about and the decomposition of organic matter has caused the black colour of the old surface which is almost a constant feature of sandhill sites." A space of 8'0 square feet of the White- ~ark Bay site contained the following: -•arrowheads, scrapers, cores, flakes, hammer-stones, pottery, plain and ornamental, and a quantity of bones, teeth and shells. The animal represented in these sites are ox, sheep, goat, pig, fox, wolf and red deer. The long bones are usually split to extract the marrow. The bird remains found are great auk, goose and guH. It is remarkable that these middens contain few remains of fishes showing that these peop[e were not sea-going fisher folk but shore-.. dwellers. It has already been stated that the WhitePark Bay site is early Bronze Age, or maybe even Neolithic, but it does not follow that all such sites are so ancient. Again to quote Macalister: "The absence of metal does not prove a stone age date for a site. According to authorities there is a sense in which Ireland never really emerged from the stone age until the coming of Cb.ristianity. There was always an aristocratic civilization and a slave community side by side, the one following out the historical succession of Bronze and Iron, the other perforce remaining content with flint." In all these sand-hills there are to be found piles of shells, principally oyster, mussel, periwinkle, cockle, scallop and whelk. They may be mixed but more often than not the different species are ke;pt apart. Sometimes the shells found are such as would not now naturally occur on the site. At Ballyness, Ciounty iDonegal, oyster shelas appear in the middens, though the oyster is no longer found locally. At Ross na Binne (also in •Donegal) a shell of Venus Verrucosa was found, a species not now li'Ving in the seas of Ireland. DOG WHEILK The dog whelk has been found in various sights, and it is thought that these were collected in order to obtain the purple dye which they contain. A connemara site examined in 1899 yielded a very large heap of these shells, all of which had been broken in the same way. This heap was regarded as evidence that the people who lived in these middens probably participated in the trade of purple dye which was a highly valued commodity in ancient times. DONEGAL SANDH'ILL SITES In a work entitled "Prehistoric Man in Ireland" (1935) by Dr. C. P. Martin, reference is made to sandhill discoveries at Horn Head, Bunbeg and Narin. Horn Head and Finnbeg are regarded as much later than Neolithic, p·rubably early Christian. Bunbeg has characteristics somewhat similar to that of Dooey. In 1891 Knowles carried out excavations at Inishcoole Island, and stone-lined gra•ves were found. In 1905 further excavations were carried out and five skeletons were dug up. fI'hese lay Within a few square feet, not side by side, but over and across one another, in a way which clearly proved that the burials had been simultaneous. A local tradition exists that an invasion took place at this spot probably in early Christian or Viking times, and that the bodies of the slain were buried at Inishcoole. INISHCOOLE In 1896 two stone-lined cists were reparted from the sand-hills of Narin. Many flint arww-heads and two stone axes were found, but from the account it is not clear whether they actually lay in the grave or were picked up in the sand around them. Stone-lined graves with the body lying on its. back, extended, were the type generally used in Iron ,/\ige and early Christian periods, and these graves appear to haV'e been of that pattern; the finds, however, were part of a much older settlement. 111.-FAffi'ORY SITES These are identilfied by the absence of hearth, bones, shells. and other kitchen refuse which mark the ordinary dwelling sites, and by the presence of flint tools, at different stages of manufacture. There is one of these at Glenarm, County Antrim, and another in co. Olare.
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