History of Newgrange

onstructed encircling the mound. Near the entrance, 17 hearths were used to set fires. These structures at Newgrange are generally contemporary with a number of henges known from the Boyne Valley, at Newgrange Site A, Newgrange Site O, Dowth Henge and MonknewtownHenge.

The site evidently continued to have some ritual significance into the Iron Age; among various later objects deposited around the mound are two pendants made from gold Roman coins of 320–337 AD (now in the National Museum of Ireland).

There have been various debates as to what its original purpose actually was. Many archaeologists have believed that the monument had religious significance of some sort of another, either as a place of worship for a "cult of the dead" or for an astronomically-based faith. The archaeologist Michael J. O’Kelly, who led the 1962–1975 excavations at the site, believed that the monument had to be seen in relation to the nearby Knowth and Dowth, and that the building of Newgrange "cannot be regarded as other than the expression