Ceide Fields
Coordinates: 54°18′18″N 9°27′25″W / 54.30500°N 9.45694°W
The Céide Fields (Irish: Achaidh Chéide, meaning "flat topped hill fields") is an archaeological site on the north County Mayo coast in the west of the Republic of Ireland, about 8 kilometres northwest of Ballycastle. The site is the most extensive Neolithic site in the world and contains the oldest known field systems in the world. Using various dating methods, it was discovered that the creation and development of the Céide Fields goes back some five and a half thousand years (~3500 BCE).
The discovery of the Céide Fields originally began in the 1930s when a local man, schoolteacher Patrick Caulfield, noticed piles of rocks which were uncovered as he cut away some peat for fuel. In these piles of peat he saw a design that could not have been haphazard; Caulfield noted that the rocks must have been placed there by people, because their configuration was clearly unnatural and deliberate. Furthermore, the rocks were positioned below the bog, which meant they were there before the bog developed, implying a very ancient origin.
The unravelling of the true significance of this discovery did not begin for another forty years when Patrick's son, Seamus, having studied archaeology, began to investigate further. Investigations revealed a complex of fields, houses and megalithic tombs concealed by the growth of blanket bogs over the course of many centuries.
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