.We can put to rest the myth offered up by well-meaning scientists that Céide Fields in Mayo County, Ireland, 20 miles northwest of Ballina, at Belderrig, Ballycastle, are the first and oldest agricultural fields of mankind. The site is on the wind-blown edge of steep coastal cliffs of Western Island and is about as suitable to agriculture as Mount Everest. The sceptical view of the "field systems" found here is correct.
On the other hand, the scientists can be pardoned, for they knew not what else to make of the earthworks clearly found there. Why else would large earthworks be made in ancient times? We have the answer.
Ceide Fields (correctly spelled Céide Fields for the purists, but not all browsers may support that writing with an accent) is as we have discovered, a megalithic site marking Corvus and Crater, the end of Hydra and Centaurus. This cliff section at Ceide Fields was selected because the coastline cliffs at this point look like the profile of a man's head - it appears that the earthworkers added the inland eye.
Corvus is a bird in the nest of Corvus, which of course is in a tree, which is Crater, all clearly marked.
As for etymology, Scottish Gaelic has CUACH meaning "the hollow of the bird's nest" which is surely related to CEIDE as CORVUS (German KORB "basket"), or else CEIDE is related to Latvian SEDE (long e) "a place to sit", i.e. the nest of the bird.
[Update Concerning the Name Céide Fields]
Why the name Céide Fields?
Because these marked the beginning of Summer ca. 3117 BC.
As we have found in MacBain's Dictionary of Gaelic online, the original term is probably related to Gaelic Céitein meaning:
"May, Old Irish cétam (g. cétaman), cetsoman (cetshaman) in Cor.Gl., where it is explained as cét-sam-sín, the first weather-motion of sam or summer. The word means the "first of summer" - cét+sam-, the sam of samhradh, q.v. The termination is possibly influenced by other time words. See Samhuinn."
Update [October 10, 2006]
Ceide Fields and Aghade (see LexiLine Journal #43 - 2002) have been uploaded to the Ancient Ireland file at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LexiLine/files as
ceidefields.gif
ceidefilds.tif
aghade.gif
aghade.tif
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