Excavations at Bay Farm 1, Carnlough, Co. Antrim, and the Study of the 'Larnian' Technology

Abstract:The paper describes excavations carried out at Bay Farm, Carnlough, Co. Antrim, between 1977 and 1980, which revealed that a series of hill-washes had covered a number of Later Mesolithic chipping floors located some distance behind the shoreline which existed at that time. A limited number of retouched tools were recovered, many in an upper stratum above the chipping floors and dumps of debris. The material recovered suggested that knapping activities had concentrated on the production of blades. A refitting programme carried out by G. Johnson showed that the so-called 'Larnian' uniplane core was often a final product in the reduction sequence of a nodule of flint. The reason for their abundance was that they represented a point at which it was difficult to remove the preferred blade form and so the core was abandoned in favour of a new nodule.