The Bronze Age

2000 BC
Copper + tin = bronze
Circular homes
Frame
Wattle & daub
Food and cooking – saddle stones
Bronze cauldrons
Spits
Fulactha fiadh
Farming – wooden spades
Wooden ploughs
Bronze sickles
Jewellery – lunalae
Sun-discs
Torcs
Necklaces
Bracelets
Burials – cist graves
Wedge tombs
Standing stones

In about 2000 BC new people came to Ireland and brought with them a
very important invention: the first use of metal. At first copper was
used, but when tin was added to it, a harder metal called bronze was
made. Their houses were usually circular, about 6 metres in diameter.
They first built a frame of timber poles. The walls were then made of
wattle and daub, and the roof was thatched. The grain was ground on
saddle-stones. Cooking was done on spits or in bronze cauldrons,
which were large pots made of bronze sheets. They tilled the land with
wooden spades and wooden ploughs with stone tips. Bronze sickles
were used to cut corn, which was then ground. Gold was beaten into
thin sheets to make lunalae and sun-discs. Later, gold was twisted into
torcs, necklaces and bracelets. Bronze Age people were usually buried
in single graves called cist graves. Some people were buried in wedge
tombs. Burial places have also been found with stone circles, stone
rows and standing stones.