Robert M Chapple, Archaeologist

The site under excavation (via The Impartial Reporter ). Dear All, I would like to draw your attention to a little crannog site just outside Enniskillen. It is SMR site FER 211: 061 it is to be demolished to make way for a new road, and the archaeologists have only been given 6 weeks to excavate it. It is due to finish on Friday 20th July 2012 (The end of this week). The site has produced a gold pin, a human skeleton, medieval leather objects, medieval woven cloth, a wooden plate, and barbed and tanged arrowheads, amongst other finds. Most importantly, it has produced the remains of a double-walled wattle house. This type of house has only previously been found on excavations Wood Quay , Co. Dublin, and Deer Park Farms, Co. Antrim. This site is of vital importantance to our knowledge of crannog construction - it has the potential to be a vital piece in our understanding of the Early Christian period on this Island and its place within Europe. Please help prevent the si...

[**  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. **] Like it or not, archaeology is one of those professions that seems designed to feature in the ‘and finally’ slot on the news, or help round out a couple of column-inches in the tabloids: ‘Boffins say boat find is older than Stonehenge’ – that kind of thing. In today’s world of instant global communications and huge volume of interesting and stimulating discoveries, this can often be the first way that even professional archaeologists find out about important discoveries – either reading it directly from the paper/website, or being told about it by a non-archaeologist friend or acquaintance. I have lost count of the number of times I have been introduced to someone as an archaeologist to be greeted with ‘have you heard about the amazing discovery in X – it was in the paper only la...