Is Fourknocks older than Newgrange?
That might sound like a curious and even offbeat question. However, it is prompted by certain interesting facts, and although we don't know the answer to that question, a definitive answer may be in the offing.
We know that Newgrange is about 5,200 years old. Its age is confirmed by radiocarbon dating of organic material found during the excavations, and further corroborated by carbon dates recently acquired from human and wolf bones found in the chamber during those excavations.
Fourknocks is a much smaller passage-tomb, located 9 miles or 15km as the crow flies to the southeast of Newgrange. In fact, the passage of Newgrange points at Fourknocks, but this has never been accepted in academic archaeology as intentional, the because intervening hills of Redmountain and Bellewstown prevent intervisibility between the two monuments.
Fourknocks was excavated in 1950, before the advent of radiocarbon dating as a method of ascertaining the age of archaeological remains. In fact, P.J. Hartnett’s paper on the excavations was published in 1957, just a year or two before Ireland’s first radiocarbon dating laboratory opened in Trinity College Dublin.
For the past 75 years, since excavation, we have never known exactly how old Fourknocks is, and the consensus among archaeologists is that it belongs to the Boyne Valley passage-tomb tradition and is likely to date broadly to the same time frame.
There are some highly interesting and unique facets related to Fourknocks that suggest it MIGHT be older than Newgrange, and perhaps older too than the cairns up on the hills of Loughcrew, in the far northwestern part of County Meath.
In this podcast, I highlight these aspects of Fourknocks, and suggest (even if tentatively) Fourknocks might be older than both Newgrange and Loughcrew. We know that the roof of Fourknocks collapsed in the Neolithic, during the period the monument was still in use. The community who built the monument continued to bury the fragmented remains of their dead in the monument post-collapse, but only in the entrance passageway since the chamber was then inaccessible.
Did the builders of Fourknocks learn from its collapse? Why does Fourknocks have the largest chamber floor area of any accessible Irish passage-tomb? Did they learn lessons from its collapse that were never to be repeated again?
The alignment of the Newgrange passage is interesting. It points, in fact, to Fourknocks, but this is not highlighted in any archaeological literature since neither monument is visible from the other due to intervening hills.
However, several of the cairns at Loughcrew are oriented so that they point in the direction of Fourknocks, and in this case there IS intervisibility.
My hypothesis is this: if you accept that the alignment of Newgrange and several of the Loughcrew cairns towards Fourknocks is intentional (and there is plenty of reason to believe that it is), then surely Fourknocks must have existed when the others were being built.
Furthermore, even the passage-tombs of Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth – the largest ever built in prehistoric Ireland – have much smaller chamber floor areas than Fourknocks. Did the builders learn the lessons associated with the collapse of the roof of Fourknocks?
This is only a theory, and is explored in depth in this new, hour-long podcast. We may have a definitive answer to the question soon enough. Archaeologists are waiting on radiocarbon dates from some of the uncremated Fourknocks bones. The results of this dating procedure could prove very interesting.
Listen to the podcast to find out more. If you enjoy it, maybe you might want to suggest to family or friends with an interest in ancient Ireland to become a Mythical Ireland Patron at the Bronze Age level or above so that they can listen to this and other podcasts, which are produced first and foremost for patrons.
