SESSION - 7 Lithotheques - collections of raw materials
The Irish lithic landscapes lithotheque

The Irish Lithic Landscapes project was initiated in 2013 to investigate the places where prehistoric communities obtained the raw materials for their flaked stone tools in prehistoric Ireland. The 2014 geoarchaeological prospection for the project centred on the northwest of Ireland, where we collected 350 geological samples from over 400 survey points, which included examining c. 250 outcrop groups. A significant part of this project is the creation of a lithotheque reference collection of Irish cherts. This lithotheque will be physically housed at the UCD School of Archaeology, Ireland and accompanied by a web-based, spatial database, open for use by other researchers. It is hoped that this lithotheque will be added to over the coming years by expanding the collection to cover chert from all of Ireland, as well as expanding it to include the range of stone tool raw materials used during Irish prehistory. This presentation will provide an overview of the fieldwork undertaken to collect the reference samples, and the designing and organisation of the physical collection and its online database.