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 it is interesting or useful, please re-share via Facebook, Google+, Twitter etc. **] Stuart Rathbone    The public face of 'Save Tara'  Introduction This paper has had a rather long gestation. It began as a brief presentation at the WAC 6 conference in Dublin in 2008 entitled, 'On Becoming the Bad Guy. Recent experiences in Irish Archaeology'. Later that year an expanded version, 'The View from the Bottom of a Ditch', was given as part of Achill Field School's evening lecture series [ Facebook | Website ]. Subsequently ever more elaborate versions were presented to the different groups of students that attended the field school during my four years of tenure there. A popular part of the course reserved for occupying part of a rainy day, it became known as 'the Hippy' lecture, presumably because of my passiona...

[** If you like this post, please make a donation to the IR&DD project using the button at the end. If you think it is interesting or useful, please re-share via Facebook, Google+, Twitter etc. **] 'Wingnut' in relaxed pose I recently encountered the story of Migaloo , the black Labrador who has been trained to sniff out human bones several centuries old. Australian dog trainer Gary Jackson, owner of Multinational K9 , has pulled off this remarkable feat and discovered a number of aboriginal graves in South Australia, and hopes to assist in the recovery of bodies from WWII battlefields in Europe. Inevitably, Migaloo is now being billed as ‘the world’s first archaeology dog’. I’m sure he is, and I’m very happy for him. However, it will come as no surprise to pet owners that cats got there first … and by quite a while! When I was younger I did not particularly like cats – I had nothing against them, but I was definitely not ‘a cat person’. That was right up unti...