Bones long thought to mark the beginning of farming in Ireland belong to bear and wild boar, not cattle, new research led by University College Dublin (UCD) has revealed.

Animal remains discovered during excavations at Ferriter's Cove on the Dingle Peninsula in Co Kerry which dated to the end of the mesolithic period (8000 to 4000 BCE) were originally thought to be proof of cattle bone fragments.

The find was considered to be the earliest evidence of the presence of domesticated farm animals for the islands of Ireland and Britain.

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However, UCD researchers have shown the famous bones were never cattle at all, but belonged to a bear and wild boar.

The discovery removes one of the most significant pieces of evidence for when agriculture developed in Ireland or Britain and likely forces a rethink of when and how their communities moved from mesolithic hunter-gatherer lifestyles to neolithic farming societies.

The new findings are part of a Research Ireland-funded postdoctoral project at the UCD School of Archaeology led by Dr Martin Moucheron, under the mentorship of Professor Graeme Warren, which is re-examining important mesolithic archaeological sites using modern scientific techniques.

Hunter and gatherers

“For at least four millennia, hunting and gathering people lived on the island and there is a common conception that they left little trace and that we know very little about them - unlike the megaliths of neolithic farmers, who are portrayed in ways that feel very familiar in Ireland,” Dr Moucheron explained.

“But there is much we can understand about mesolithic people just by going back to the sites and material we have and by looking at them with new eyes and new techniques - and an open mind.”

Since excavations in the 1980s and 1990s, Ferriter's Cove has occupied a central place in debates about Ireland's prehistoric past, as several bone fragments were uncovered and initially identified as domesticated cattle.

These remains, the so-called 'Kerry cow', contradicted existing theories of the mesolithic–neolithic transition in Ireland and, ever since, have been cited as evidence that its mesolithic communities had established links with early farmers arriving from continental Europe.

The original archaeological material from Ferriter’s Cove, which is now stored at University College Cork (UCC), were sent to a lab in Lille, France, to undergo biomolecular analysis.

The results found the fragments were not from domesticated cattle as originally thought, but instead came from a bear and a wild boar.

Therefore, there is currently no archaeological evidence to support the idea that domesticated cattle and, by extension, early farming communities, had reached or influenced Ireland before 4000BC.

Ferriter’s Cove

“Ferriter’s Cove is an iconic archaeological site, originally excavated by the late Professor Peter Woodman, Department of Archaeology, UCC.

"This new collaboration with colleagues at UCD marks an exciting new phase of research and these remarkable results are set to change our understanding of the earliest evidence for agriculture in Ireland," Benjamin Gearey from UCC commented.

This new research has rewritten one of Ireland's best-known archaeological narratives and highlights the value of revisiting important archaeological collections with modern scientific methods, demonstrating how advances can challenge long-held assumptions and reshape the understanding of the past.

Analysis is now under way to determine whether the bear remains belonged to brown bears or polar bears and hopes to provide new insights into prehistoric Ireland’s bear populations prior to their extinction during the bronze age.