From the ending of our most recent Ice Age to the arrival of our First Farmers, the Irish landscape changed little other than the reduction of our land space with rising sea waters from the melting ice cap. The Mesolithic peoples left minimal traces behind such as that at Lough Boora, Offaly.
The First Farmers introduced land clearances in order to sow crops, crops led to surpluses. Surpluses were used for sowing in the next year and also for trade. Crops led to settlement where people no longer needed to hunt or to gather in the same way. Settlement and farming also led to a substantial growth in the Irish population. Later, farm animals appear requiring further land clearances. DNA evidence is emerging that new groups of people were coming into Ireland, resulting in the previous hunter gatherer population disappearing from the landscape.
The organisation of farming resulted in changes to the diet while settlement in specific locations led to wealth and people living longer. We then start to see monuments appear on the landscape particularly for burials of members of the elite, almost always male. Many of the structures were built to honour the dead and their ancestors, some were richly furnished and provide more evidence of the wealth of those living in the Bronze Age.
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