The Mesolithic in the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy: An overview

Abstract

This special collection of papers published in the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy ( PRIA ) celebrates the role of Ireland’s foremost learned society in pro-moting and disseminating research into Ireland’s hunter-gatherer past and show-cases the development of Mesolithic archaeology in Ireland. It is published to coincide with the international Conference on Hunting and Gathering Societies (CHAGS13) hosted by University College Dublin’s School of Archaeology, 27 June to 1 July 2022. CHAGS is the international meeting of the International Society for Hunter-Gatherer Research, and brings together anthropologists, archae-ologists, community representatives and staff from a variety of state and NGO positions—all sharing an interest in hunter-gatherers; past, present and future. This short introduction provides a background and a context for the papers. It is not a comprehensive history of the Irish Mesolithic (see Driscoll 2006; Warren 2022; Woodman 1978; Woodman 2015). We have selected fourteen papers published over ninety years from 1912 to 2022. We have, broadly, attempted to select one per decade or so, but also to capture the different levels of scholarly output over this period. There are more papers from recent years, reflecting the significant expansion of Irish archaeology since the 1990s. Papers relevant to Ireland’s hunter-gatherer past were mainly published in the PRIA Section C: Archaeology, Culture, History and Literature ; with one selected from Section B: Biological, Geological, and Chemical Sciences (now published as Biology and Environment: Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy ). These papers do not provide a complete representation of the Mesolithic in Ireland. Substantial contributions have been made in monographs providing overviews (Warren 2022; Woodman 1978; Woodman 2015) as well as publications of key excavations (Woodman 1985; Woodman . or research projects (Woodman . 2006). Key sites have also been published in other journals, including a variety of