Ireland's First Settlers tells the story of the archaeology and history of the first continuous phase of Ireland’s human settlement. It combines centuries of search and speculation about human antiquity in Ireland with a review of what is known today about the Irish Mesolithic. This is, in part, provided in the context of the author's 50 years of personal experience searching to make sense of what initially appeared to be little more than a collection of beach rolled and battered flint tools. The story is embedded in how the island of Ireland, its position, distinct landscape and ecology impacted on when and how Ireland was colonised. It also explores how these first settlers evolved their technologies and lifeways to suit the narrow range of abundant resources that were available. The volume concludes with discussions on how the landscape should be searched for the often ephemeral traces of these early settlers and how sites should be excavated. It asks what we really know about the thoughts and life of the people themselves and what happened to them as farming began to be introduced.

Mesolithic Horizons marks the publication of the proceedings of the seventh international conference on 'The Mesolithic in Europe' (Belfast 2005). The numbers attending these five-yearly conferences continue to grow - testimony to the growing interest in a period that less than fifty years ago was seen by many as either a 'hiatus' between two more interesting periods, or as a poorly understood phase of little consequence. This is an enormous compendium of research published in two volumes with over 140 papers drawn from the whole of Europe, ranging from the European Arctic to many parts of the Mediterranean, and from the British Isles to Russia. These papers cover recent research on virtually all aspects of the European Mesolithic. They are grouped into twelve thematic sections that cover topics as diverse as regional studies which explore settlement, economic identity and mobility, as well as the critical analysis of individual settlement sites, and the significance of ritual. The crucial issue of the process of colonisation that took place at the end of the Ice Age and issues of transitions in the Mesolithic are extensively covered. For the first time the publication of the conference contains an index and consolidated bibliography which will make these volumes invaluable research tools.

In 2002-2003, the construction of a new road to bypass the village of Toomebridge, Co Antrim, through which the main Belfast to Derry Road (A6) passed, was commenced by Roads Service; an Agency within the Department of Regional Development. As part of the overall planning permission for the Toomebridge Bypass, the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) raised a requirement for archaeological mitigation. Northern Archaeological Consultancy Ltd was appointed to undertake the archaeological excavation of this site. In the course of topsoil stripping a small drumlin on part of the road scheme 2,100 flint artefacts were uncovered. While the majority (approximately 70%) of these dated from the Late Mesolithic, the Earlier Mesolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age periods were also represented. Archaeology was uncovered on the western side of the drumlin. It formed 14 discrete areas (Features 1-14). The features were for the most part structures and ranged in date from the Mid-Mesolithic (Features 1-4), through the Late Mesolithic (Features 5-8), the Bronze Age (Features 9-11), and the late Bronze Age or Iron Age (Feature 13) and the 19th to 20th centuries (Feature 14).

The term 'Mesolithic' was born in the nineteenth century from the need to label a 'hiatus' period and was not generally accepted as a useful term by many scholars until around fifty years later. It has been championed by some, but still concerns others because of the difficulty of defining what it represents. This volume highlights the enthusiasm for Mesolithic studies in the 21st century and the feeling that there is a need to explore the many facets of Mesolithic lifeways. Approaches are now moving away from the traditional Mesolithic canon that seems to have been based on a particular set of biological and/or ecological perspectives and are now looking for new directions and new theoretical arenas which can only help stimulate Mesolithic debate. The papers in this volume take a range of approaches to a period that has largely been devoid of explicit theoretical discussion. They deconstruct and explore a broad variety of subjects, including mobility, complexity, seasonality, death & burial, gender & sexuality, social relations, music, human agency, ethnoarchaeology and emotion.