Trackway Excavations in the Mountdillon Bogs, Co. Longford, 1985-1991

The present volume is the culmination of seven seasons of excavtion in the Mountdillon, Co. Longford bogs. The Mountdillon campaign has shown the extraordinary potential of wetland studies in adding new perspectives to our knowledge of past societies. The work tells us far more than merely how people made track- ways at different times in the past. Behind the trackways we can get glimpses of the social organisation involved in their construction and in the preserved wooden artifacts from Corlea 1 we are afforded hitherto unsuspected insights into the intricacies of Iron Age joinery. O'Sullivan has shown how much we can learn about woodwork- ing techniques and Caseldine and Hatton indicate the information which the excavations give us on climatic and environmental changes over the millennia. Moloney has presented detailed evidence of wood selection in the past and Casparie, along with Moloney, presents important information about the microenvironment of the Corlea 1 roadway. Reilly's study of the insect remains at Corlea 9 also reveals environmental information which dryland sites can rarely provide. The larger trackways of oak, as Baillie and Brown show, have played an impor- tant role in establishing absolute dates for specific episodes of human activity in the region and the significant clustering of dates at certain periods seems confirmed by the large number of radiocarbon dates supplied by Lanting. In the case of Corlea 6, the precise dating of a trackway bearing the marks of metal tools has important implications for the dating of the earliest use of metal in Ireland. ÓhÓgáin's study of the placename evidence in the Tochmarc Étáine raises intriguing possibilities that the tale embodies a deep-seated folk memory of the great Corlea road.