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 the review is useful, please re-share via Facebook, Google+, Twitter etc. **] I recently attended one of the PCC Lunchtime Seminar Series talks ( Booms and Busts in Europe’s Earliest Farming Societies given by Prof. Stephen Shennan ) at the S chool of Geography, Archaeology and Palaeoecology at QUB. It was a fascinating talk that I enjoyed very much and I decided that I would make every effort to attend the next one. Yesterday (6th March 2012) we had Dr. Jessica Smyth , currently of the Organic Geochemistry Unit, in the School of Chemistry, at the University of Bristol , speaking on the topic of lipid analysis and their application to the study of the Irish Neolithic. She began by introducing the topic of lipid analysis, explaining how it involves the investigation of surface and embedded fats to reconstruct past diets. This field of research w...

Eoin Grogan & Charles Mount (eds.). The Organiastion of Irish Archaeologists, Dublin, 1995. 72pp. ISBN 0-9524666-0-0. €7.99 + P&P from Dr. Charles Mount (see contact details at the end of this piece). [**  If you like this post, please make a donation to the IR&DD project using the button at the end.  If you think the review is useful, please re-share via Facebook, Google+, Twitter etc. **] Since I started this blog in August 2011, and realised that there was some interest in archaeological book reviews, I have pretty much kept to the latest offerings available to the profession. Thus far I have published seven reviews of books, all of which were released either in 2010 or 2011. This review is a little different as the book I have chosen was published some 17 years ago, in 1995, and presents papers from a conference held in UCD two years previously. Even the sponsoring body of the conference, The Organisation of Irish Archaeologists is now long def...

With the passing of Billy Dunlop, on the 15th of September 2011, Irish archaeology lost one of it great promoters and enthusiasts. I cannot claim to have known Billy longest or best, but, like many field archaeologists working in Northern Ireland, I owe him a vast debt of gratitude for his kindness and generosity. For those stories shared over cups of tea on site or for the books lent to me from his personal collection I was, and remain, grateful. In time, I trust, appropriate obituaries and appreciations will appear from the pens of others better acquainted with more aspects of his life. My intention here is to set down a general outline of his life along with some of my memories of this energetic and charismatic man, who I am privileged to have known and been able to call both a mentor and a friend. Billy was born in 1920 in Court Street, Newtownards, and grew up on Deleware St, off the Ravenhill Road, Belfast. At the age of 14 he joined The Post Office as a telegraph mess...