Robert M Chapple, Archaeologist

[**  If you like this post, please make a donation to the IR&DD project using the button at the end.  If you think the review is useful, please re-share via Facebook, Google+, Twitter etc. **] Preface: I am very happy to introduce our third guest writer, Rena Maguire, to the blog. Rena is an undergraduate student at QUB, in her second year. She is currently working on her undergraduate thesis: Iron Age horse harness Y pieces: function, manufacture and typologies. Robert M Chapple Being an archaeology and paleoecology undergraduate in QUB Belfast has perks, one of the best being the PCC Lunchtime Seminars organised by our department. I’ve personally found them invaluable to gain insights into sometimes quite obscure areas of archaeology. The guest lecturers are, as one would expect, at the cutting edge of their respective fields. Not least of these is Dr Seren Griffiths of the University of Cardiff , who gave a talk (March 20 2012) on Scatter Matters: ...

[**   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.**] In my review of Anne Lynch’s recent publication Tintern Abbey, Co. Wexford: Cistercians and Colcloughs. Excavations 1982-2007 I touched on the finding that some of the women buried at the Abbey may have routinely carried heavy loads perched on their heads. To be specific, O’Donnabhain (2010, 116) notes that among the sexed females from the site, there was a marked increase in the rate of osteophytosis in the neck than among the males. He notes that this observation correlates with an elevated rate of arthritis of the cervical vertebrae. Taken together, it is postulated that these conditions are evidence for the routine carrying of loads on the head. No published references are cited in support of this thesis. Similarly, no parallels are drawn with any comparable e...

[**  If you like this post, please make a donation to the IR&DD project using the button at the end.  If you think the post is useful, please re-share via Facebook, Google+, Twitter etc. **] St. Patrick's gravestone in 1900 I hadn’t intended to write anything for this blog specifically about St. Patrick or St. Patrick’s Day . However, I happened to read the rather excellent post about the death and burial of ‘Ireland’s Patron Saint’ by Cultural Heritage Ireland [ Facebook Page | Twitter ]. The post quotes the Annals of Ulster and the Annals of the Four Masters’ account of the death, burial, and battle over the body of Patrick, followed by its eventual burial at Dun-da-leth-glas (Fortress of the Two Broken Fetters), modern Downpatrick . It is well worth a read ! The post even includes a photograph of St. Patrick’s grave. Specifically, it is the photograph of the grave that prompted me to write, as it reminded me of my own first encounter with the Saint on hi...

[**  you like this post, please make a donation to the IR&DD project using the button at the end.  If you think the review is useful, please re-share via Facebook, Google+, Twitter etc. **] Preface: I am very pleased to introduce Duncan Berryman , our latest guest contributor to the blog. Duncan is a post-graduate student at QUB , and is currently working on his PhD: ‘A documentary and archaeological investigation of the buildings of manorial curiae.’ He is currently the editor of the Ulster Archaeological Society ’s Newsletter . You may also follow him on Twitter . Robert M Chapple Excavation in progress The February lecture of the Ulster Archaeological Society was given by Dr. Emily Murray .  Emily has worked for the Centre for Archaeological Fieldwork (CAF) at Queen’s University, Belfast for a number of yeas and has been involved in a large range of excavations.  She has specialised in zooarchaeology and has a wide range of publications....

[**  If you like this post, please make a donation to the IR&DD project using the button at the end.  If you think the review is useful, please re-share via Facebook, Google+, Twitter etc. **] I recently attended one of the PCC Lunchtime Seminar Series talks ( Booms and Busts in Europe’s Earliest Farming Societies given by Prof. Stephen Shennan ) at the S chool of Geography, Archaeology and Palaeoecology at QUB. It was a fascinating talk that I enjoyed very much and I decided that I would make every effort to attend the next one. Yesterday (6th March 2012) we had Dr. Jessica Smyth , currently of the Organic Geochemistry Unit, in the School of Chemistry, at the University of Bristol , speaking on the topic of lipid analysis and their application to the study of the Irish Neolithic. She began by introducing the topic of lipid analysis, explaining how it involves the investigation of surface and embedded fats to reconstruct past diets. This field of research w...