Robert M Chapple, Archaeologist

[** If you like this post, please make a donation to the IR&DD project using the secure button at the right. 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 right - each purchase earns a small amount of advertising revenue **] Part II | Part III > It all started innocently enough. I received an ostensibly ordinary email from Conor McDermott at UCD to let me know that their Archaeological Research Seminar People and Their Worlds would be happening on May 1st. The brochure was certainly promising: This year's UCD School of Archaeology Research Seminar will include a range of presentations from staff, researchers and PhD students, showcasing ongoing and new research being carried out at University College Dublin. Topics will include reconstructing health patterns in the early medieval Irish community; Palaeolithic occupation and ancient g...

[** If you like this post, please make a donation to the IR&DD project using the secure button at the right. 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 right - each purchase earns a small amount of advertising revenue **] On Friday the 6th of June 2014, I wandered along to the Pat Collins Reading Room at Waterman House, Hill St., Belfast to listen to the magnificent Dr Rowan McLaughlin speak about prehistory in Ulster. Specifically, he was intent on tackling the impact that data from excavations in the last decade-and-a-half have had on our understanding of prehistory in Ulster and Ireland generally. The MRB have been running a pretty excellent lecture series over the last while and have a full schedule of speakers lined up until the end of 2014 ( here ). I’ve not been to any of these before, but I felt that I wanted to make a special effort for th...

Radiocarbon and Palaeoenvironmental Reconstruction in Practice | Call for papers From Ben Gearey: We are organizing a session as part of “ The Radiocarbon and the Environment Conference ” which is being held at Queens University Belfast on the 18th-22nd August 2014.  The session is entitled “Radiocarbon and Palaeoenvironmental Reconstruction in Practice” and we invite papers on aspects of the theory and practice of radiocarbon dating of palaeoenvironmental sequences and deposits. Given the cost of radiocarbon dating and associated problems of ‘doing archaeology’ in the Age of Austerity , we are especially keen to focus on approaches to and issues concerning radiocarbon dating within commercial archaeology. We also hope to discuss and reflect on ‘best practice’, for example, how can we maximise cost benefit from radiocarbon dating programmes? The session is open to anyone with an interest in these and related issues. The full abstract is available at: http://www.qub.a...