5500bc Rathlin island finds included a huge haul of flint tools polished axe heads pottery a bronze finger ring and lignite jewellery the survey has bolstered recent archaeological findings that rathlins human habitation dates to the Mesolithic period around 5500bc which is at least 1000 years earlier than previously thought Porcellanite is a very dense form of recystallised basalt that occurs in the only two places in eire one is at brockley on rathlin porcellanite axes were among the most effective and valued of Neolithic tools and were traded widely throughout eire and great Britain and brockley a cluster of houses within the townland of ballygill middle on rathlin island county antrim features a Neolithic stone axe factory featuring the same porcellanite stone the sources of porcellanite group ix
Research by the irish stone axe project cooney and mandal 1998 has revealed that this stone was used from over half of all the circa 22,000 axeheads found in eire 18000 stone axes gaelic provenance 7294 porcellanite 4000 scottish axes alba provenance 2200 wales axes cumbria provenance 20 porcellanite cumbria South cumbria to lambay 3 axes Cornish axes to eire 14 rathlin ballynoe is several miles from the source of the porcellanite indicating that the stone was transported to other sites on the island for preparation porcellanite polished axe head fragment most of the earliest archaeological findings on rathlin suggest that the island was first inhabited during the Neolithic period the new stone age 4000 to 2500 bc large numbers of flint tools and porcellanite axe heads have been recovered indicating that the islands natural resources were fully exploited by its first inhabitants an archaeological dig at shandragh knockans south in 1994 uncovered large quantities of late Neolithic and bronze age artefacts including worked flint porcellanite and pottery due to the large quantity of material found it seems likely that shandragh was the site of an industrial production facility the prescence of pitchstone from the isle of arran in the firth of clyde indicates that even at this early stage the island had established links with Scotland Porcellanite is a very dense form of recystallised basalt that occurs in the only two places in eire, the other is on the mainland at tievebulliagh near cushendall porcellanite axes were among the most effective and valued of Neolithic tools and were traded widely throughout eire and great Britain and tievebulliagh mountain near cushendall features a Neolithic stone axe factory
