A major Stone Age site of huge historical importance has been found under Lough Foyle between Derry and Donegal.
The settlement was found under Lough Foyle.
The discovery of prehistoric tools and peat along the western shore of Lough Foyle suggests that hunter-gatherers lived in a settlement in north Donegal during the Stone Age.
The settlement, one of Ireland’s earliest, was probably founded in 7,000BC, during the early Mesolithic era.
The Sunday Times reports the findings by Kieran Westley, a researcher at the Centre for Maritime Archaeology at the University of Ulster.
His findings are published in the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology.
Westley has found evidence of Stone Age settlers at two small bays on either side of the Skate Rock headland in Eleven Ballyboes, near the mouth of Lough Foyle, which separates Donegal from Co Derry.
He spent two years digging pits on the shoreline and under shallow waters in the bays, in what became Ireland’s first in-depth survey and excavation of an underwater prehistoric landscape.
The search found a number of pre-historic artefacts including flints and blades.
