A concise and vivid introduction to the Stone and Bronze Ages of Ireland. Anna Brindley takes us back in time to meet our first known ancestors, the Mesolithic hunter-gatherers who colonised the island of Ireland some ten thousand years ago. By 3700 BC, with the arrival of the Neolithic peoples, hunting and gathering had largely been replaced by farming, giving rise to settled communities, the development of new tools and weapons, permanent burial places, and improved methods of transport and communication. Some twelve hundred years later, as metal started to replace stone for making tools and ornaments, this chage triggered off a fresh cycle of innovation. Just as the earliest farmers may be identified by their use of quernstones and sickles, the early metal users may be recognised by their use of copper and bronze tools and weapons. This text is lavishly illustrated with an array of ornaments, jewellery, pottery, tools, weapons and other artefacts, of gold, leather, wood, stone copper and bronze, from the prehistoric collection of the National Museum of Ireland.