Kilgreany Cave

Kilgreany Cave in County Waterford held five burials and 865 artefacts spanning roughly 5,000 years, from Neolithic shell and bone adornments to a Viking Hnefatafal piece and medieval whetstones. The cave was first misread as proof of pre-8000 BC human life, but dating placed the main adult male burial in the Neolithic, about 3000 to 2500 BC. It may have begun as a grave place, become a shrine, and still serve as a workshop or marker long after its first mourners forgot why they went there.