ABSTRACT
The Mesolithic of Ireland has always been characterized by assumptions about the role of coastal landscapes in structuring the lives of hunter-gatherers. Chapter 4 reviews the data that allows us to understand Mesolithic coastal landscapes by focusing on: the physical form of those landscapes, including variation over time in response to sea-level change; archaeological evidence for specific interactions with the coastal landscape, including seafaring, raw material procurement and subsistence patterns; and the influence of time and temporal resolution for our ability to understand those landscapes at both regional and site scales. While progress has been made in understanding the role of coastal landscapes in the Irish Mesolithic, considerable gaps remain, not least in our ability to accurately reconstruct the changing physical form of coastal landscapes and their ecological conditions, as well as a lack of archaeological evidence from submerged and buried coastal contexts.
