1.1. Hunter-Gatherer: A person who hunts fish and animals and gathers berries and nuts for food.
1.2. Mesolithic: Middle Stone Age. A period when the first known people came to Ireland in around 8000BC
1.3. Stone Age: A period of time where the most advanced material was stone
1.4. Microlith: A small sharp piece of stone placed on top of spears, harpoons etc to make hunting easier
1.5. Postholes: Dark patches of soil where wooden sticks that held up houses rotted into the soil.
1.6. Nomadic: People who moved around when food ran out
1.7. Grave Goods: Items of value e.g. jewellery that were buried with the dead.
2. 4. Neolithic Key Terms
2.1. Lough Gur: A neolithic site in Limerick.
2.2. Ceide Fields: A neolithic farm in Mayo
2.3. Wattle and Daub: Small interwoven sticks plastered with mud, used to build house walls and fences.
2.4. Mattock: A stone tool used for raking the hard ground so that farmers could plant crops
2.5. Saddle Stone: A big stone with a hollow in the middle where wheat was placed. A smaller stone was ruled on top of it, crushing the wheat into grain that could be used to make grain and porridge.
2.6. Megalithic Tombs: A "great stone grave". It appeared first in megalithic times.
2.7. Court Cairn: A grave with a big court and a passage leading to one or more burial chambers where cremated bodies were kept.
2.8. Portal Dolmen: Three large stones supporting a fourth capstone. Bodies were placed under the roof or capstone.
2.9. Passage Tomb: Newgrange. Largest type of grave with a long passage leading to to one or more burial chambers where the ashes were kept. They often had a corralled roof.
2.10. Corbelled: Stones stacked up on top of each other to form a crude arch.
3. 5. Bronze Age Key Terms
3.1. Bronze: Tin, found in Cornwall, England and copper, found in Co. Kerry, Ireland. It was stronger, sharper and easier to shape than stone.
3.2. Fulachta Fiadh: A water based oven
3.3. Lunula: Crescent shaped decoration made from gold and used to hold the cloak together.
3.4. Megalith: A big stone used for building/marking burial sites/tombs
3.5. Stone Circles: A ring og megaliths used for religious ceremonies.
3.6. Wedge Shaped Tomb: A tomb shaped like a slice (wedge) of pizza with the bodies at the narrowest point.
3.7. Cist Burials: A rectangular pit in the ground, lined with stone. The body was arranged in a crouched position and it was sealed with a capstone.
3.8. Torc: A crescent shaped piece of jewellery worn around the neck and made off twisted gold.
3.9. Smiths: Made weapons and tools
4. 6. Iron Age/Celtic Key Terms
4.1. Aos Dana: Skilled members of the community with gifts such as poetry (filí), priests (druids), warriors and judges
4.2. Brehon: Judges who punished those who disobeyed the Brehon Law.
4.3. Crannog: A fortified lake dwelling for the most important members of the community
4.4. Derbhfine: The royal family. The rí was chosen out of the derbhfine. He was always male
4.5. Druid: A priest who trained for twenty years before being allowed to preside over sacrifices to the gods and religious ceremonies.
4.6. Fill: Poets who passed on stories from generation to generation
4.7. Hill Fort: A fort built on a hill. It looked like a ring fort, but was uninhabited.
4.8. Ogham: Ireland's first alphabet. It was twenty letters long and based off Latin. It was done on stones called Ogham Stones
4.9. Promontory Forts: They are found on cliffs or headlands e.g. Dun Aengus. They were like ring forts but were protected by chevaux-de-frisse. They were not lived in.
4.10. Ring Fort: It was a Celtic settlement. It was surrounded by an earthen bank with a wooden fence on top. Inside there ere several buildings for storage, animals and humans.
4.11. Souterrain: A passage under a ring fort used for escaping, storing things to keep them cool and hiding.
4.12. Tuath: A small kingdom. There was about 150 in Ireland
4.13. Fostering: Sending a son to another family in a different community to learn new skills.
4.14. Rotary Quern: A new invention that made grinding grain much easier.
5. 7. Early Christian Ireland Key Terms
5.1. Book of Kells: A beautifully illustrated manuscript containing the four gospels.
5.2. The Cathach: One of the oldest existing manuscripts. It is psalms on vellum
5.3. Filigree: Gold wiring put on chalices or other metal works to make them more decorative.
5.4. High Cross: A way of teaching people about the Bible. As most people could not read, the monks carved stories from the Bible onto the High Crosses, and taught from those images.
5.5. Oratory: Church
5.6. Parchment: Sheep skin
5.7. Refectory: Canteen
5.8. Scribe: Writer / illustrator
5.9. Scriptorium: Where the scribes worked
5.10. Vellum: Calf skin
6. 9. Medieval Key Terms
6.1. Bayeaux Tapestry: A tapestry depicting scenes from the Battle of Hastings
6.2. Feudal System: The king gave land to lords in return for vassals, the lords gave land to the knights in return for protection and people to fight for him and the knights rented land to the peasants in return for work and money.
6.3. Motte and Bailey Castle: A castle on a hill with living quarters for the servants, workshops, kitchens and stables at the foot of the hill.
6.4. Vassal: A lord who took an oath of allegiance to the king
6.5. Manor: A big area of land given to a knight, which usually formed a village as it was rented out to peasants
6.6. Demesne: An area of land the knight kept for himself and his family.
6.7. Moat: A water-filled trench surrounding a castle.
6.8. Curtain Wall: Tall stone walls that circled a castle, protecting and defending it.
6.9. Battlements: A walkway on top of the curtain walls where soldiers could attack approaching enemies
6.10. Portcullis: An iron grille directly behind the drawbridge that could be raised or lowered by a pulley
6.11. Gatehouse: A room that housed the levers and pulleys for the drawbridge and portcullis
6.12. The Keep: A large house where a lord lives with his family. It contained the Great Hall, the dungeons, and the guard' quarters.
7. 10. Renaissance Key Terms
7.1. Renaissance: Revival or rebirth
7.2. Humanism: The belief that humans are equal to God
7.3. Perspective: A method pf putting depth into paintings
7.4. Fresco: A painting done on wet plaster
7.5. Apprentice: A young boy who was sent to a master to learn his trade
7.6. Patron: A rich person who sponsored artists
7.7. Gutenberg: The person who created the first printing press with movable metal type
7.8. Censor: To block something from the public
7.9. Literacy: The ability to read and write
7.10. Vernacular: The language of the people
7.11. Sfumato: A method of blurring the outlines of a subject to make it blend into the background
7.12. Anatomy: The study of the human body
8. 1. Historian Key Terms
8.1. Archive: A place where documents of historical interest are stored, e.g. The National Archives, Co. Dublin. They are not open to the public.
8.2. Artefact: A man-made object of historical interest.
8.3. Chronology: A timeline of events that occur one ofter the other e.g. 1999, 2000, 2001
8.4. Decade: Ten years
8.5. Fact: Something that is true
8.6. Manuscript: A handwritten document
8.7. Primary Source: A first hand account of information
8.8. Propaganda: Appealing to people's feelings inn order to promote your point of view
8.9. Secondary Source: A second hand account of information.
9. 2. Archaeologist Key Terms
9.1. Archaeology: Studying the past through material remains.
9.2. Carbon 14 Dating: Finding out how low a nice living thing is by measuring the amount of carbon 14 left in its body
9.3. Excavation: Digging up historical sites in order to find artefacts
9.4. Museum: A place where artefacts go and are put on public display
9.5. Pollen Analysis: It tells us what plants were growing in that time and what people ate
9.6. Stratigraphy: Finding out how old an object is by measuring the depth in the ground it was found in.
10. 8. Ancient Rome Key Terms
10.1. Patricians: Wealthy Romans
10.2. Domus: Wealthy Roman's houses
10.3. Plebeians: Poor Romans
10.4. Insulae: Apartment block where poor Romans lived
10.5. Peristylum: A walled garden
10.6. Atrium: An open pool filled with fresh water to keep the domus cool
10.7. Mosaics: Pictures made with pieces of stone, pottery and glass, usually done on a floor
10.8. Mural: A painting done on walls
10.9. Forum: Town centre
10.10. Amphitheatre: A stadium where gladiators fought against wild animals or other gladiators, often to the death e.g. the Colosseum
10.11. Circus Maximus: An oblong stadium where chariot races were held.
10.12. Catacombs: Secret underground tunnels where Christians held religious ceremonies and buried their dead.
10.13. Dole: A monthly supply of grain that the Government gave to the plebeians.
10.14. Classical Architecture: Rounded pillars, arches and domes.
