Return of the Phantom Earthwork | a 'fake' ring barrow at Lissindrigan, Co. Galway
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I'm being haunted ... and it's all the fault of
modern technology.
I've been dawdling, not knowing how to start
this post. Here’s the problem: Just about everyone who has ever written
anything – from a school days essay, or a peer reviewed paper, to a
bodice-ripper novel – knows that you need to have three things to make it work:
a beginning, a middle, and an end. The middle and end aren’t a problem – I’ve
got them nailed! It’s the beginning that’s giving me trouble. I’m like the
opposite of Mr Spiggott, the one legged actor, applying for the role of Tarzan – it’s
not that I am missing a beginning, it’s that I’ve got one too many.
Enough procrastination – I’ll pick one and see where it takes
me.
 |
| A very fake ring barrow |
I think I'll start with Academia.edu. I've often described Academia.edu as
'Facebook for nerds' ... and it sort of is. If you're not familiar with the
site, it's a place where you can connect and interact with other students or
professional academics in your chosen field. Rather than Facebook's ubiquitous
posts featuring LOL cats and Star Wars trivia (I'm guilty on both counts),
Academia.edu allows you to upload PDF copies of all your publications. It's an
amazing resource for maintaining links with other professionals in your field
and gaining exposure to the latest research.
But there's a dark side to this. The search
capabilities of sites like this are now sufficiently advanced that they can
scan other resources external to their own content, and then make suggestions
on work you may have published, but neglected to add to the site. I think
what's happened is that they've scanned the Archaeology Ireland section
of JSTOR and they've come across my first ever
published piece in that magazine I love so much. Every time I log on to the
site there is a small, discrete notice suggesting that I upload a copy of this
missing masterpiece.
Here's the problem ... and part of the reason
that I wasn't sure where to start this piece. There’s another beginning. To
understand my reluctance to upload a copy of this piece I have to go back a
long, long way ... way back to when I was a young and impressionable
undergraduate. I can't honestly remember the circumstances, but I do remember
being part of a conversation (or, more accurately, hanging around on the edges of a post-grad bitching session trying to look knowledgeable), when the discussion turned to a certain rather
pretentious individual. After all these years, I can't even remember who they
were talking about, but I remember one sentence as clear now as the day it was
uttered: 'I just can't stand him - he's such an arse! Do you know, on his CV he
even lists all his published 'letters to the editor'!?' I may have forgotten
the person and the circumstances, but this has stayed with me - one never –
simply never – credits this form of ephemera.
Obviously, this is exactly my problem … my debut piece in Archaeology Ireland was just that – a
letter to the editor! As much as it
repulses me to formally acknowledge it and, intellectually, take it under my
wing, seeing it pop up every time I log in to Academia.edu is just becoming
such a bore. For this reason, you can now read it in all its glory on JSTOR and on Academia.edu. And right there, gently reader, we have evidence that cyber
bullying has become automated!
To save
you all the reading, my piece was in response to Victor Buckley. In a previous
edition of Archaeology Ireland (Buckley 1998) he had told the story of being out one evening exercising
the family hound on the communal green space near his home. At that time, he
had lived in this development on the edge of Drogheda, Co. Louth, for 11 years,
but it was only on this specific evening with the combination of the freshly
mown grass and the new street light that he saw an exceptionally low-lying and previously
unrecorded ring-barrow. At the time I read it, I thought it was a nice little discovery,
but something just didn’t seem right. I’ve spent the majority of my
professional career in commercial archaeology on building sites. Up until that
time, I’d never seen the pieces of land that would eventually become the green
spaces cordoned off and left untouched. From then, until I left commercial
archaeology in 2011, I hadn’t seen it either. Then as now, I’m not saying that
it’s not a genuine ring-barrow, I’m
just advising caution above and beyond that normally applied to an unexcavated
site.
For quite some time, Victor’s article passed from my mind. As I note in my response, it was only when I was out walking my own family’s dog – a beautiful, lovely, but immensely stupid red setter called Ross – that I noticed the pseudo ring-barrow at the side of my grandmother’s house in Lissindrigan, outside Craughwell, Co. Galway. My original description noted that it '... measures 5.49m N-S externally (3.28m internally) and 5.61m E-W (3.12m internally). The bank is on average 0.1m above the interior and 0.18m above the surrounding ground surface. The interior is also slightly dished towards the centre.’ Because, back then, I was that guy who went about with a measuring tape and note book in case of encountering any interesting archaeology, I was already part way through recording the ‘site’ when its true origin dawned on me. Back in 1978, my grandparents had decided to forsake the family thatched cottage for a modern bungalow, and just where my wonderful ring-barrow lay was where the builders had dumped their sand. To avoid getting soil mixed into the cement, the builders would have shovelled their sand from above ground level. Presuming that they judged their requirement for sand about right, the remains they would have left behind would have looked just like a small ring-barrow formed of a slight, sub-circular bank and having a dished interior. After the house was finished, the remaining sand was quickly colonised by advancing weeds and grasses. For many years after, my grandmother used this little area as the place she fed and watered her flock of chickens.
Somewhere
along the line, Buckley’s discovery came back to mind. With a view to as much
laugh at my own eagerness to identify/misidentify a site as to provide a caveat to Victor’s discovery, I penned a
few lines for Archaeology Ireland and sent it off. An issue or two later it was
published, along with a gentle rebuttal and further caveat from Victor himself (Buckley 2000).
THE END …
and the middle, too ... just before that.
Except … that
doesn’t cover the whole tale … there are other parallel ‘middles’ that never
made it into the published version and there are other ‘ends’, too.
Here’s
another middle: Back in 2000, I hadn’t published all that much and didn’t have
much of a reputation within the industry. Victor Buckley, on the other hand,
was well known, well liked, and well respected. He had organised the First
International Conference on Burnt Mounds and edited the conference proceedings
(Burnt Offerings: International Contributions to Burnt Mound Archaeology). Although, sadly, out of print you can still pick up
reasonably priced copies, and it remains a standard text on the burnt mound
site type. This was my first ever archaeology conference and it was an amazing
experience to see and hear all these academics – many of whom I’d only known
through their published offerings – standing up and talking about their work
and research. It was an eye-opener in other ways too as I have a distinct
memory of a well-known, tenured professor, flirting madly and lasciviously with
pretty-much every female there, including his own students … but I digress.
This conference was where I first met Victor. On the morning of the second day
of the conference he appeared with a large bag of heat-fractured stone from a burnt
mound he had excavated and proceeded to hand bits out as souvenirs to all the
delegates. Judging by the entries in the Excavations.ie
database, the material was from either Ballyremon
Commons, Co. Wicklow, or Curraghtarsna,
Co. Tipperary, both of which were excavated in 1980. Although I’ve seen way too
many burnt mounds since [here | here | here | here | here], I still have that piece of broken stone. Because he seemed
like a decent individual, and because every once in a while I attempt to
overcome my natural inclination towards being an utter knob, I wrote him a letter
to say that I’d penned this little piece in reply and that, if it was alright
with him, I’d like to send it to Archaeology
Ireland. From my records (and, yes, I am that kind of obsessive crazy), I
see that I sent him the letter on March 8th 2000. When I’d not heard anything
back from him by April 16th, I just thought: ‘To Hell with it! I’ll send it on
to Archaeology Ireland and see if
they’re interested’. They liked it well enough to publish with a brief response by Victor himself … the end!
 |
| The same non-ring barrow from the same angle ... just a different arrangement of ranging rods ... because that's how I roll! |
The End! …
The two archaeologists arguing in print meet and find they get on pretty well.
In a proper and well thought out movie – like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
– the protagonists ride off into the sunset as the credits roll. Definitely the
end!
Except …
… there’s one more ending
Back in
the late ‘90s, and even into 2000, I was pretty unfamiliar with email. Even
though it was becoming more common, it was certainly not as prevalent as it is
today. Back then, I certainly preferred the more formal letter to this new
electronic upstart. Today, you’d just attach a PDF or an MSWord document to the
email, probably with a photo or two, send the lot off … simples! What did I do? I sent
them a paper version of the piece with my cover letter that included the ridiculously formal line: "Should
you wish to publish it, please contact me and I will send you a disk copy and
the accompanying photograph." … and then I waited. I waited so long that I
presumed they weren’t interested in publishing it – not that I could blame them
… it was hardly the stuff of legend, destined to set the archaeological world
alight. The first inclination I got that the editor was interested in it was
when I saw it in print. They’d obviously transcribed the text from the paper
version … and they hadn’t asked for the photo. I always thought that this was a
pity as my phantom ring-barrow really did look like the genuine thing. In
anticipation of writing up this momentous paper, I’d returned to my
Grandmother’s house, armed with a camera and a ranging rod and taken a couple
of slides for posterity (another part of the middle). I remember looking up
from straightening the ranging rods to see my Granny looking out at me from
behind the net curtains, no doubt wondering what her eldest grandson was up to
this time and why he was so interested in the place she fed her chickens. The
slides came back after having been developed and I dutifully numbered and catalogued
them and put them away in clear plastic envelopes (just so we’re clear: I’m that type of crazy). In the early part
of 2012 I was ‘between careers’ and, as one of a number of measures to relieve
the depression of receiving multiple rejection letters for entry-level
positions, I set about transferring the slides to digital. When I came to these
two photos, I thought: ‘I must write something about these … sometime’. So …
here’s my final ending to this story: making these photos of my ‘phantom
earthwork’ public, and (hopefully) adding a little to the communal pile of
knowledge.
 |
| They found me ... now they want me to tag it! |
THE END!
… or maybe
not …
Maybe
reading this will help make a mental connection for someone, somewhere and help
set of a line of thought and research that blossoms and bears fruit for them.
Maybe they’ll report back that they’ve seen something similar, or maybe it’ll
sit tucked away in the back of someone’s mind for many years and we’ll never
hear of it. Maybe there will be new beginnings, middles, and ends, all
interlinked parts of this and other stories … maybe you’ll be part of it!
The
Beginning? …
Note
If you’re
interested in Irish archaeology, you really should have a subscription to Archaeology Ireland. Go and subscribe: here. If they have a space for comments, tell the good people at
Wordwell Books that Chapple says ‘Hi’. I’ll not make any money off it and
you’ll not get a better deal … but it may just bring smiles to the faces of the
good folks who produce this fantastic magazine. Apart from the excellent periodical
filled with the latest on all things related to Irish archaeology, every quarter
you’ll receive a lovely ‘Heritage Guide’ card. As if this was not enough,
you’ll receive access to the Irish archaeology portion of the JSTOR resource,
so you can read all the back issues and other great works of Irish archaeology for
free!
References
Buckley, V. 1998 'Walkin' the Dog' Archaeology Ireland 12.3, 4.
Buckley, V. 2000 'Of Folk Tales and Concrete Evidence' Archaeology Ireland 14.2, 44.
Chapple, R. M. 2000 'Phantom Earthworks: A
cautionary Note' Archaeology Ireland
14.2, 44.
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