Thirty researchers from Ireland and Kiel came together at the Graduate School from July 2 to 4, 2012 with the aim of comparing Neolithic landscapes in northwest Ireland and northwest Germany.

Scientists get afloat for core drilling near Carrowkeel.

For several years, archaeologists and palaeoecologists from Kiel University and the National University of Ireland Galway have cooperated in a project reconstructing the vegetation history and environmental changes in the Carrowkeel area, County Sligo (www.ecosystems.uni-kiel.de/english/e_projekt_carrowkeel.shtml). Comparing their findings from this region in northwest Ireland with the development in northern Germany, the scientists found that there are several coincidences; for example, the contemporaneous occurence in both areas of the ‘elm decline’ and also, at least partly, the emergence of megaliths. On the other hand, analysis showed that Ireland saw a greater increase of non-tree pollen around Sligo in compariosn to northern Germany, which indicates a more intense opening of the landscape.