Loughnashade trumpet (only known survivor of four) found in the ‘lake of treasures’ in Emhain Macha, Co. Armagh. It dates from the first century BC. Copyright the National Museum of Ireland.
There is a theory, recently put forward on Irish television and based on dendrochronology of Irish samples that suggests the earth underwent rapid cataclysmic changes beginning in 1159 and lasting 18 years.
McCafferty put the theory forward in Secrets of the Stones on RTE and it was further championed in Bettany Hughes series’ Seven Ages of Britain. The climate at this time became very wet and cold across a large area, if not the entire planet. The initial theory was that this was due to an eruption of Hekla in Iceland, but it was suggested in these programmes that this suggestion has gone by the wayside in favour of a dust mantle in the earth’s atmosphere deposited by a meteorite. Obviously, this is much cooler than a poxy volcano.
If the theory is correct this cloud would have the net effect of what we would call now, a nuclear winter. The sun was blocked out, causing plants to cease growing and seasonal crops would have failed. Massive rains would have altered the physical geography, causing settlements to be uprooted. The archaeological evidence supports these statements- Dartmoor in England, which had supported a large population became empty; trees picked up from bogs in Ireland and dated to this era all show little or now growth through these 18 years.
It was around this time that the Bronze Age gave way to the Iron Age; so when the natural phenomena meet the new found ability to create better weapons and farming tools the effects on civilisation would have been, and indeed were, staggering. Add to this the fact that food at the time was not stored in large quantities and it is easy to envisage the upheaval. China experienced great change as the Shan Dynasty fell and in Greece Mycenae’s once vibrant civilisation died out.
Religion in Ireland and England appears to have altered too. According to Secrets of the Stones, where we in Ireland had once worshipped the earth with tunnelling edifices and subterranean corridors we now erected standing stones and looked for a return of the sun. Votive offerings were made to large bodies of water as crops became waterlogged. The Loughnashade Trumpet (pictured above) was found along with our ceremonial offerings in the Lake of the Treasures at Emain Macha in Armagh.
Bibliography
Seven Ages of Britain, Second Age, Channel 4
Secrets of the Stones, RTE
Blood of the Irish, RTE
This article was posted by Ronan McDonnell on
Thursday, June 11th, 2009 at
04:02.
It is archived in Culture, Environment, History and tagged archaeology, astronomy, climate change, Ireland, souterrains, theory, volcanology.
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