Robert M Chapple, Archaeologist

[** If you think the review is useful, please re-share via Facebook, Google+, Twitter etc. **] Preface: I am delighted to welcome my very first guest writer to the blog. Aaron David McIntyre is an undergraduate student at The School of Geography, Archaeology and Palaeoecology, QUB. His research interests include Lisburn in the Gaelic period and the archaeology of the Plantation era. He is also involved in politics with the Alliance Party . You can also follow him on Twitter . Robert M Chapple Aaron David McIntyre and Mary Beard BBC Northern Ireland, in association with the Heritage Lottery Fund hosted the ‘Festival of History and Broadcasting’ - a series of talks, discussions and lectures hosted by William Crawley between 21 st and 23 rd February 2012. As an undergraduate archaeology student my interests are eclectic to say the least, but Rome and Classical archaeology never captured my imagination - so it was with some trepidation that I signed up to the ‘Ro...

[** If you think the review is useful, please re-share via Facebook, Google+, Twitter etc. **] The PCC Lunchtime Seminar Series is run by the School of Geography, Archaeology and Palaeoecology at QUB in Belfast. I believe that they have been going for some time now and, although I’ve regularly been told about them and how I really should get along there, I’ve somehow not managed to make it. However, I promised myself that the next opportunity I got I would definitely attend – come hell or high water.  I spoke to a friend of mine who told me that the next one coming up (Tuesday 21st February 2012) was on Early Neolithic Farming. I liked the sound of that and I promised faithfully that I would be there. It only occurred to me the day before the lecture to enquire who the speaker was. When I was told that the speaker would be Prof. Stephen Shennan my heart just fell. I have nothing against the man, I truly don’t. Prof. Shennan is Director of the UCL Institute of Archaeology ...

[** If you like this post, please make a donation to the IR&DD project using the button at the end.  If you like this post, please consider re-sharing this post via Facebook, Google+, Twitter etc. **] Preface I think I originally started work on this paper around 1996. I certainly remember working on it around 2000 to 2001. By that time I felt that the paper was not coming together very well. In part, this was due to my attempt to shoehorn together some rather traditional concepts of gravestone art with my somewhat more unusual (read: crazier) take on a statistical approach to the subject (See Chapple 2000). Part of the reason I abandoned this piece was that while I felt that either approach worked well on their own, the two together did not quite fit. Attendant to that, I began to wonder what the audience would be for something like this – perhaps a bit too technical for a genealogical or art-focused reader, but a bit too pedestrian for a professional archaeological aud...