Coffey and Piiakgeii — The Antrim liaised Beach. 199 



the Carses, and of implements of deer's horn, and canoes containing stone 

 celts, embedded in the Carse clays, points to submergence of the Carses 

 during early human times, which would correspond with the Irish 

 evidence. Munro's interpretation^ of the deposits in the Mac Arthur 

 cave at Oban, also, involves a land-level during jS'eolithic times 30 feet 

 lower than at present. Jamieson's observation of worked flints and 

 shell mounds on the top of the 25-foot beach would show that elevation 

 was at least well begun before the end of the Stone Age ; and the 

 Joppa pagan cemetery {ante^ p. 161) clearly indicates that the Bronze 

 Age found the movement of elevation at least nearly completed. The 

 peat deposits on the beach, up to 14 feet in thickness, to which Jamieson 

 draws attention, also attest a considerable age for the uplift; while his 

 statement regarding the occurrence of artificially chipped flints, which 

 are not rolled, on the raised beach north and south of the mouth of 

 the Ythan, " often in positions a very few feet above high- water mark," 

 suggests a parallelism with our observations at Portstewart, and the 

 conclusion that the movement of elevation was completed during the 

 Stone Age — though the author escapes this conclusion by assigning the 

 phenomenon to the survival of the use of stone weapons into recent 

 times in that district. The evidence in Ireland, we may remark in 

 passing, does not admit of this interpretation. Speaking on this 

 question in general, it may be mentioned that the earliest forms of 

 metal celts (copper) are found in the Connties of Antrim and London- 

 derry equally with the more southern counties ; and there is conse- 

 quently no reason to infer that the spread of metal in the north of 

 Ireland was relatively much later than in other parts of Ireland. As 

 regards the sandhill sites, the mouth of the Bann shows an advanced 

 Stone Age ; and as that river must have been always an important 

 site for settlement, owing to its importance as a salmon river and 

 accessibility to Lough I^eagh, it must have been one of the earliest 

 localities for metal in the north of Ireland. 



On the other hand, we have to account for the various records of 

 iron and other late objects found in the Carse clays, which would 

 indicate a much later date for the movement of upheaval. But Munro's 

 investigations of this question, already quoted, leave it vei*y doubtful 

 if any geological significance attaches to the occurrence of these 

 objects. 



Some observers, again, have concluded that only the older part of 

 the beach and of the emergence is Neolithic, and that by the time 



^ Loc. cit., p. 270. 



K.I. A. PKOC, VOL. XKV., SIX. c] 



