<P> Ireland was also rich in native gold, and the Bronze Age saw the first extensive working of this precious metal by Irish craftsmen . More Bronze Age gold hoards have been discovered in Ireland than anywhere else in Europe . Irish gold ornaments have been found as far afield as Germany and Scandinavia . In the early stages of the Bronze Age these ornaments consisted of simple but finely decorated gold lunulae, a distinctively Irish type of object later made in Britain and the continent, and disks of thin gold sheet . Later the familiar thin twisted torc made its appearance; this was a collar consisting of a bar or ribbon of metal, twisted into a spiral . Gold earrings, sun disks, bracelets, clothes fasteners, large "gorgets" and in the Late Bronze Age, the distinctively Irish bullae amulets were also made in Ireland during the Bronze Age . </P> <P> Smaller wedge tombs continued to be built throughout the Bronze Age, and while the previous tradition of large scale monument building was much reduced, existing earlier megalithic monuments continued in use in the form of secondary insertions of funerary and ritual artefacts . Towards the end of the Bronze Age the single - grave cist made its appearance . This consisted of a small rectangular stone chest, covered with a stone slab and buried a short distance below the surface . Numerous stone circles were also erected at this time, chiefly in Ulster and Munster . </P> <P> During the Bronze Age, the climate of Ireland deteriorated and extensive deforestation took place . The population of Ireland at the end of the Bronze Age was probably in excess of 100,000, and may have been as high as 200,000 . It is possible that it was not much greater than it had been at the height of the Neolithic . In Ireland the Bronze Age lasted until c. 500BC, later than the continent and also Britain . </P> <P> Tribes of Ireland according to Ptolemy's Geographia (written c. 150 AD). </P>

When did the bronze age end in ireland