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http://www.ucc.ie/en/archaeology/res...urelienburlot/
"During the Neolithic period, evidence of contacts between different parts of Europe is illustrated by long distance exchanges of artefacts, but also by the constructions of megalithic structures. Research regarding passage tomb building during the fourth millennium BC, show that ideas or people travelling along the Atlantic façade from Iberia to Ireland and Britain, resulted in comparable monuments and similar megalithic art styles (Shee Twohig 1981). Then, during the first half of the third millennium BC, the evidence of contacts between the Continent and the two islands appears to have ceased. Instead, new belief systems travelled across the Irish Sea, with the construction of henges and the erection of timber circles, associated with Grooved Ware ceramic, in the vicinity of older passage tombs.
During the second half of the third millennium BC, renewed contacts with the Continent is evident by the introduction of copper metallurgy in Ireland. In France, the earliest evidence of metallurgy has been determined in the southern Languedoc region, within pre-Beaker communities, probably with influences from Iberia c. 2700 BC. Once metallurgy was adopted, it spread northward along the Atlantic coast reaching north-western France and Brittany in particular, where Beaker contexts are the earliest. Similarly, the earliest evidence of metallurgy in Ireland can be associated with the ‘Beaker folk’, with the discovery of the copper mines and metalwork camp at Ross Island, near Killarney, Co. Kerry (O’Brien 2004). Scientific analyses of early Irish copper artefacts indicate that, the arsenicated copper from Ross Island was distributed across Ireland and Britain at this time. The use of such metal is similar to other early Iberian and French metal artefacts, and this suggests a continental origin of the technology to Ireland."
"During the Neolithic period, evidence of contacts between different parts of Europe is illustrated by long distance exchanges of artefacts, but also by the constructions of megalithic structures. Research regarding passage tomb building during the fourth millennium BC, show that ideas or people travelling along the Atlantic façade from Iberia to Ireland and Britain, resulted in comparable monuments and similar megalithic art styles (Shee Twohig 1981). Then, during the first half of the third millennium BC, the evidence of contacts between the Continent and the two islands appears to have ceased. Instead, new belief systems travelled across the Irish Sea, with the construction of henges and the erection of timber circles, associated with Grooved Ware ceramic, in the vicinity of older passage tombs.
During the second half of the third millennium BC, renewed contacts with the Continent is evident by the introduction of copper metallurgy in Ireland. In France, the earliest evidence of metallurgy has been determined in the southern Languedoc region, within pre-Beaker communities, probably with influences from Iberia c. 2700 BC. Once metallurgy was adopted, it spread northward along the Atlantic coast reaching north-western France and Brittany in particular, where Beaker contexts are the earliest. Similarly, the earliest evidence of metallurgy in Ireland can be associated with the ‘Beaker folk’, with the discovery of the copper mines and metalwork camp at Ross Island, near Killarney, Co. Kerry (O’Brien 2004). Scientific analyses of early Irish copper artefacts indicate that, the arsenicated copper from Ross Island was distributed across Ireland and Britain at this time. The use of such metal is similar to other early Iberian and French metal artefacts, and this suggests a continental origin of the technology to Ireland."
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