Mount Sandel Mesolithic site

The site at Mount Sandel is the oldest evidence for the settlement of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers on the island of Ireland. Mount Sandel is located east of the remains of a fort in the city of Coleraine, County Londonderry in Northern Ireland. The site is located about eight kilometers (air distance) from the mouth of the River Bann in the Atlantic Ocean on an exposed hill.

The discovered in the 19th century and excavated 1973-1977 by Peter Woodman 700 m² large archaeological site, according to radiocarbon dating 9000 years old and is of the utmost importance for the history of Western Europe.

The field name Mount Sandel also referred to an Iron Age fortification. Some historians locate in this place also the medieval town of Kill Santain or Kilsandel. This was camp and fortified base of the Norman John de Courcy in the time of the Norman invasion in the 12th century.

Woodman found evidence for six round huts of about six meters in diameter with a central hearth. The seventh cottage is small, only about three meters in diameter and has an outside stove. The huts were made ​​of a framework of curved, circular targets set in post holes in the bottom branches that were probably covered with skins.

A variety of microliths (tiny stone tools ) were found, but also axes of flint, needles, scalene triangular arrowheads and knives. Although the preservation conditions were not good, hazelnut shells and bone fragments were found in a fire pit. A series of marks in the soil were interpreted as residues of scaffolds for drying fish. Remains of deer, game birds and wild boar as well as seals, eels, mackerel and mussels were found.

The place has been all year, but at the same time inhabited by no more than 15 people. Against 6000 BC Mount Sandel was abandoned.