Robert M Chapple, Archaeologist

Reconstructing the lifeways of people who perished in 19th century Kilkenny and London. Lecture by Drs Julia Beaumont and Janet Montgomery at the Discovery Programme, 19 th of March 2014. Report by Philippa E Barry In March 2014, the Discovery Programme , in partnership with the Irish Isotopes Research Group (IIRG), was delighted to welcome Drs Julia Beaumont and Janet Montgomery to speak about their work on Great Hunger victims in both Kilkenny and London.  The research was mostly a product of Julia’s PhD for which Janet acted as supervisor.  Janet was instrumental in bringing the use of strontium and lead isotope analysis to investigate human mobility into archaeology in the UK and as such, contributes to the recently formed IIRG. Julia’s research turned out to be groundbreaking – because they sampled teeth from individuals from known contexts over very specific periods of time, they were able to apply historic data to a Neolithic Scottish popula...

[**  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. **] Preface Let me tell you a story. Way back in 1997, not long after I first came to Belfast, I got a job working on the excavation of Portora Castle , Co. Fermanagh. The site was directed by Cormac McSparron , and during the course of the excavation we became good friends. Over a pint or two on a night out in Enniskillen, we discussed the potential for archaeology that the internet was opening up. One of our ideas was for an internet-based journal devoted exclusively to Irish archaeology. Our general feeling was that ‘someone’ should do it. By June of the following year no such site had materialized and we thought we’d give it a shot ourselves. This was the genesis of The Internet Journal of Archaeology in Ireland . Unfortunately, we had no resources and no track record of deli...