Robert M Chapple, Archaeologist

[** If you like this post, please make a donation to the IR&DD project using the secure button at the end. If you think it is interesting or useful, please re-share via Facebook, Google+, Twitter etc. To help keep the site in operation, please use the amazon search portal at the end of the post - each purchase earns a small amount of advertising revenue**] I had planned to put this post out ages ago, but then I found out that October is California Archaeology Month ... so it just had to wait! *           *           * As some readers of this blog will know, I spent part of March and April this year (2013) in San Diego, California. While there we did all the tourist things: SeaWorld , Legoland , San Diego Zoo , along with sampling large amounts of the local seafood and beer (I strongly recommend the Red Trolley ale ). I even managed to get myself invited to the beautiful campus of the University of San Diego to talk a...

I apologise in advance – this post has almost nothing archaeological to it. However, I’d be very grateful if you would read it and consider sponsoring me in this charity endeavour. How I'm afraid it'll go! I have a very distinct memory, from when I was a very young child, of seeing a fire walker on TV. Even though the presenter explained the physics involved – that the feet aren’t in contact with the coals for any significant time, certainly not enough to induce a burn – it left an indelible image on my subconscious. Since that time - and despite all scientific evidence to the contrary - the concept of fire walking has, to me, been imbued with layers of romanticism and mystique. It has become synonymous with feats of bravery and exoticism … and … I suppose, with the passing years it has become fossilised in my mind as something that happens to Other People. Adventurous folk. Certainly not to me. That’s probably where that one would have stayed – another...

25th to 27th October 2013 Institute of Technology, Sligo This October bank holiday weekend will be an exciting one for Sligo as both the Archaeology of Gatherings Conference and the Sligo Live Music Festival are taking place. The Archaeology of Gatherings is a thematic international conference taking place at the Institute of Technology , Ash Lane, Sligo, Ireland, at the end of October. As 2013 is the year of ‘ The Gathering ’ in Ireland the theme was chosen to explore why people over millennia have come together for assemblies and social interactions of various forms. By bringing together a range of speakers from different disciplines, time periods, and countries, the conference aims to explore the material culture and psychology behind gatherings of people.  The conference papers examine a broad spectrum of aspects on the theme of gatherings. While some aim to interpret the archaeological evidence available to us from prehistoric through to more rec...