Burenhult were conducted over two seasonal campaigns, 1977–1982 and 1994–1998. Ten tombs were fully or partially excavated. Listoghil was excavated in 1996-8. Excavations conducted by the National Roads Authority for the Inner Relief Road route in Maugheraboy near Sligo – three kilometres from Carrowmore – have shown that a causewayed enclosure existed at the same time as Carrowmore. Causewayed enclosures are diagnostic of Neolithic activity in Europe. Excavation results The Carrowmore burial assemblage is typical of that of the Irish passage tomb tradition. It includes antler and bone pins with mushroom shaped heads and stone or clay balls. Quartz fragments accompanied most of the burials; this material clearly had ritual significance in the passage tomb tradition. The discovery of antler pins and shellfish in the chambers might suggest that the earliest monuments were built by people who followed hunter-gatherer lifeways; but the presence of small amounts of Carrowkeel ware Neolithic pottery at these sites is also suggestive of farming influence. The chambers contained the remains of multiple individuals. Most of the Neolithic burials at Carrowmore appear to have been cremations. The chambers were re-used intermittently for burial and deposition of artefacts by the people of the Bronze Age and Iron Ages. The small Carrowmore dolmens seem not to have been covered by stone cairns: although such ideas were once popular among antiquarians, the discovery of "settings" of stone and finds close to the chambers and of Roman and Bronze Age artefacts make it unlikely – according to Burenhult – that such cairns ever existed. Radiocarbon dates Radiocarbon dates from the survey and excavation project in the 1970s, 80s and 90s by Professor Göran Bürenhult generated some controversy at the time, as Burenhult interpreted the dates to indicate that the monuments were erected and used by a hunter gatherer community. For example, a sample taken from the chamber of Carrowmore 3 was claimed to indicate a date of 5400 BC. Burenhult's theory of Mesolithic tomb builders, first presented in 1982, received critical revision in the quarter century that followed. A source critical review and 25 new radiocarbon dates demonstrated that the Carrowmore monuments are shown to have spanned the era circa 3750 BC to circa 3000 BC. This data set is supported by palaeo-environmental studies in adjacent lakes conducted by Stolze, O'Connell, Ghilardi and others, showing farming activity coincident with or preceding monument use. Ancient DNA The analysis of ancient DNA