Robert M Chapple, Archaeologist

A review of Kytmannow , T. 2008. Portal Tombs in the Landscape: the chronology, morphology and landscape setting of the portal tomb of Ireland, Wales and Cornwall. Oxford: BAR British Series 455. Rena Maguire [** 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 have never liked the traditional implication that portal tombs were in some way inferior to court, passage and wedge tombs. Archaeology may have ‘trends’ and fads but there are some areas of study which seem to be the academic equivalent of the little black dress – eternally in fashion. The gleaming white stones of Newgrange always generates the megalithic sexy. It would appear that a single chamber, a pair...

[**  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. **] Preface: I am delighted to welcome back Rena Maguire to the blog. Rena is an undergraduate student at QUB, in her second year. She is currently working on her undergraduate thesis: Iron Age horse harness Y pieces: function, manufacture and typologies. This sounds like a fascinating lecture, and I'm sorry that I missed it. Unfortunately, I cannot agree with Carver's denigration of the Harris Matrix. For my part, I am of the opinion that Edward Harris' Principles of Archaeological Stratigraphy is the single most important archaeological book ever published. I do agree with his point that a thorough knowledge of its workings does not make an archaeologist, but it was never intended to! The Harris Matrix was only ever conceived of as one of a variety of rese...

[**  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. **] Preface: I am very happy to introduce our third guest writer, Rena Maguire, to the blog. Rena is an undergraduate student at QUB, in her second year. She is currently working on her undergraduate thesis: Iron Age horse harness Y pieces: function, manufacture and typologies. Robert M Chapple Being an archaeology and paleoecology undergraduate in QUB Belfast has perks, one of the best being the PCC Lunchtime Seminars organised by our department. I’ve personally found them invaluable to gain insights into sometimes quite obscure areas of archaeology. The guest lecturers are, as one would expect, at the cutting edge of their respective fields. Not least of these is Dr Seren Griffiths of the University of Cardiff , who gave a talk (March 20 2012) on Scatter Matters: ...