Ross Island is a claw-shaped peninsula in

Killarney National Park Killarney National Park (), near the town of Killarney, County Kerry, was the first national park in Ireland, created when the Muckross Estate was donated to the Irish Free State in 1932. The park has since been substantially expanded and en ...

County Kerry County Kerry () is a Counties of Ireland, county on the southwest coast of Republic of Ireland, Ireland, within the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster and the Southern Region, Ireland, Southern Region. It is bordered by two other countie ...

Ross Castle Ross Castle () is a 15th-century tower house and keep on the edge of Lough Leane, in Killarney National Park, County Kerry, Ireland. It is the ancestral home of the Chiefs of the Clan O'Donoghue, later associated with the Brownes of Killarne ...

is located here and it is also the site of abandoned copper mines, including some believed to be the earliest in north-western Europe.

Copper extraction Copper extraction is the multi-stage process of obtaining copper from list of copper ores, its ores. The conversion of copper ores consists of a series of physical, chemical, and electrochemical processes. Methods have evolved and vary with coun ...

on the site is believed to be the source of the first known Irish Pre-Bronze Age metalwork, namely

copper Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin ) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orang ...

axe heads,

halberds A halberd (also called halbard, halbert or Swiss voulge), is a two-handed polearm that was in prominent use from the 13th to 16th centuries. The halberd consists of an axe blade topped with a spike mounted on a long shaft. It may have a hook or t ...

and knife/dagger blades dating from 2,400 - 2,200 BC. These finds have been distributed throughout Ireland and in the West of Britain - in South Britain the metalwork was imported from across the

English Channel The English Channel, also known as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates Southern England from northern France. It links to the southern part of the North Sea by the Strait of Dover at its northeastern end. It is the busi ...

.p142-146, Richard Bradley ''The prehistory of Britain and Ireland,'' Cambridge University Press, 2007, Excavations of the site have unearthed both mining operations and a

smelting Smelting is a process of applying heat and a chemical reducing agent to an ore to extract a desired base metal product. It is a form of extractive metallurgy that is used to obtain many metals such as iron-making, iron, copper extraction, copper ...

camp where the

Copper ore Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin ) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orang ...

was processed into a type of metal distinctive enough to be traced to these early tools. As there is no evidence that the complex technology had developed spontaneously, this early

metallurgy Metallurgy is a domain of materials science and engineering that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their inter-metallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are known as alloys. Metallurgy encompasses both the ...

would indicate contacts with mainland Europe - in particular, extending along the coastline from Spain through Normandy. The Ross island operation was associated with beaker pottery and continued until ca 1,900 BC.

References

{{coord, 52.038, N, 9.537, W, region:IE_type:isle, display=title Archaeological sites in County Kerry Prehistoric sites in Ireland