Radiocarbon-dated charcoal from fluvial sediments in the Mourne Mountains, Northern Ireland: Neolithic forest clearance and tin and gold recovery in the Early Bronze Age?

Two profiles through fluvial sediments associated with the Leitrim River, in the Mourne Mountains, are described and three stratified radiocarbon dates from minute woody-charcoal fragments from one of the profiles are discussed. Two of the dates are Neolithic (early and late), the earliest being, perhaps, the result of slash-and-burn forest clearance. The third date is Early Bronze Age and we suggest, on the basis of the sediment characteristics and metal analyses, that the charcoal in that layer might have been connected with the recovery of tin and gold.