Carrowkeel Megalithic Cemetery

Carrowkeel is a cluster of passage tombs in south County Sligo, Ireland. They were built in the 4th millennium BC, during the Neolithic era. Nearby are the Caves of Kesh and Heapstown Cairn. The Carrowkeel tombs are protected National Monuments and are considered one of the 'big four' passage tomb cemeteries in Ireland, along with Carrowmore, Brú na Bóinne and Loughcrew.

The bones curated in Cambridge at the Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies were researched by the Human Population Dynamics at Carrowkeel Project. The original excavation mistakenly dated the monuments as Bronze Age structures, but the new study has shown that the sites were in use between c. 3,500 and 2,500 Cal. BC. Of 22 stable isotope samples, the majority indicated that the dead had grown up in a carboniferous limestone region, probably close to Carrowkeel. The DNA genomes assembled from six individuals indicated ancestral origins in Anatolia, and greater affinity with the Mediterranean than the Danubian expansion of early farming in Europe.

Address
Ballymote, Ireland

Established
4000-3000 BCE