Seminar report: "Forget about "Heritage": Place, Ethics and the Faro Convention

On November 27th, Professor John Schofield, head of the Department of Archaeology at the University of York, addressed the UCD school of Archaeology about what heritage means in terms of place and the perception from different people. Professor John Schofield is also the Director of the Centre for Applied Heritage Studies as well as a member of the Society of Antiquaries of London.

The critical point that Professor Schofield emphasized was that Heritage was a universal right for everyone. This principle is also mentioned in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 27 that was declared in 1948 in the United Nations (UN). It addresses that an ethical approach to heritage should be in accords with moral principles, specifically this link to heritage and human rights.

To address the concept of heritage as well as issues face with it, the Faro Convention considers the value of heritage to society and seeks to make it available for everyone to participate it in. This European convention works to put the people and human values at the centre of heritage sites based on the principles that a historic environment is a shared resource and that everyone should be able to participate. The need to involve everyone involves, as Professor Schofield describes, finding creative ways to get the whole community involved. This concept led to the interesting idea of having the homeless community as well. The reason for this was that it is typically associated that the homeless do not have a home and there for cannot offer insight into heritage. However, heritage, as Professor Schofield says, is about place, and should be for everyone. 

Through a group called Common Ground, an organization founded in the UK, they seek to promote local distinctiveness among communities as well as to promote heritage engagement among everyone. Heritage engagement involves places and our relationship with them, which Professor Schofield remarked, changes from person to person because of what they perceive as aspects of their heritage important to them. A way to demonstrate this was by asking people to draw Parish maps within their community. The maps were designed by various communities, each one distinctive in how they portrayed their sense of place, some maps having a more aerial view of the village, while others would have text written by different places, which would tell different stories about the site, offering a history of the place as well as its significance to the community.

An example of a Parish map that Professor Schofield highlighted was one drawn by a young black musician named Pyro from Wavertree, Liverpool, UK. Wavertree has had a history of gang fighting within its community, leading much of the community into poverty. Despite his poor education, Pyro drew a Parish map of places that the found important to him within his own sense of place, offering insight into the activities of the community.

Professor Schofield also talked about a project that he worked on  Turbo Island in Stokes Croft in Bristol. As a way to get the community involved, Professor Schofield extended the offer to the homeless as well to help participate in the excavation of the site, which was helpful in identifying material culture that the homeless identified with because it is a part of their lifestyle. The excavation itself lasted only 3 days but through this, Common Ground was able to extend understand from different perspectives from the homeless their concept of place and heritage while also making it available to them as a universal right.

By Mary Cain

Seminar report: Missing Persons? Formal disposal and funerary practices in Prehistoric Britain

On the occasion of the Inaugural Lecture of the Society on November 20^th, Professor Chris Scarre, head of the University of Durham addressed the gathered audience about funerary practices and the disposal of the dead through a project of his called Invisible Dead. The aims of the project were to analyse the how burials appear and disappear in the record of various regions across Britain from the Neolithic to the decline of the Roman Empire as well as understand the changes in burial customs and the relationship between the living and the dead. Professor Scarre highlighted that the treatment of the dead is critical not just for archaeologists in finding remains, but also for understanding the society it reflects, funerary practices echoing a “self-awareness” within the culture.

                Using the Baysian method for collecting a vast range of data, Professor Scarre was able to note changes in burial practices across different eras in Britain as well as different regions. For example, a majority of funerary practices in Southern and Eastern England during the Late Neolithic to the Early Bronze Age consisted of a single grave under a round mound. He noted that in terms of space, there was a segregated funerary space, possibly for ritual. In contrast to this, the Middle and Late Bronze Age produced more cremation burials, which was becoming a more widespread practice throughout Europe at the time.

                As well as addressing the dead buried in funeral customs, Professor Scarre also addressed the issues of finding the dead in ‘non-funerary’ customs such as victims of warfare or bodies disposed in other manners. As an example, he talked about a skull found in the River Thames that was dated from the Bronze Age. He remarked that because of this deviation from traditional practices, it does not give archaeologists an accurate sense of how the dead were treated.

                From the transition between the Bronze Age and the Iron Age, his project revealed the growing shift in burial practices with a rise in inhumation graves. In some of these graves, chariot remains were uncovered, however he believes that the incorporation of a chariot in the grave was not a continuous burial custom. It is also at this time, his data revealed there is a slight decline in cremation graves, which raises questions as to why there was a change in customs but also challenges assumptions of ‘normative burials’.

                From the Roman Conquest of Britain in 43 AD, the Invisible Dead project estimated that the population within Britain at the time would have consisted roughly of 3.7 million people! Based on this number, it was estimated that 25 per thousand per year would have led to 22 million deaths. However, despite these estimations, only .05% of these burials are known from the English Heritage Database. This raises the issue of what happened to the rest of the population? Through this project, Professor Scarre hoped to address this issue, stating that this was only the first half of the project and that he hopes that he can continue this project to provide a clear answer. 

By Mary Cain

Seminar report: Green Treasures from the Magic Mountains

On the 13th of November 2014, the Society welcomed Dr Alison Sheridan from the National Museum of Scotland. She was speaking to us about "Projet Jade", a pan European research project funded by the French government. The project was led by Dr Pierre Petrequin and the University of Besancon and took 3 years to complete.

Dr. Sheridan began by explaining the aims of the project, which are laid out below.

1.       Discover the provenance of the jade and the axes

2.       Discover the working areas associated with these axes

3.       Outline the manufacturing process and how it was organised

4.       Map the European wide distribution of the axes

5.       Formulate a database for all jade axes larger than 14cm

6.       Establish a European wide typomateriochronology

The axes were made from 6500 BC to 2500BC; they were manufactured in the Alps and then transported across Europe. These axes had a ceremonial role and Dr. Sheridan believes that axes in the Neolithic obtained a sacred status due to their importance in clearing the land for agriculture.

It was originally believed that the jade originated in Asia, however, this was disproven. The working theory following that was that the jade was mined from boulders brought down the mountains in rivers and streams; as it would be much too difficult to climb the mountains, just for some jade.

However, when Dr. Pierre Petrequin studied native tribes in New Zealand, he observed that obtaining stone for ceremonial goods required a great deal of effort, and was in and of itself a ceremony. The stone was considered sacred due to the difficulties in obtaining it. When he returned to France, he applied this logic to the European jade axes, and spent the summers climbing the Alps with his wife searching for the source of the jade. In  2002 they discovered working sites for jade axes high in the Alps, proving his theory.

So how would Neolithic people have discovered these jade sites? Dr. Sheridan explained that it was likely that they found the jade when climbing the mountains in the summer with sheep or goats. She recounted her own experience climbing to the top of the Alps and described the summit as seeming otherworldly, Neolithic shepherds would undoubtedly have felt similarly humbled. This added extra value to the jade, not only was it difficult to get but it also came from an isolated area, high above the clouds, which may have seemed divine to Neolithic people. The jade axes were “pieces of places”, their sacred origin added value to a sacred object – the ceremonial axe.

The axes originated in Italy, and gradually spread to Switzerland, France and throughout Europe, reaching a peak at 4600-4400 BC and then becoming rarer from 4200-2700BC when copper axes rose in popularity. The jade axes were difficult to make, and would have taken hours to shape and perfect. They were not finished in the mountains, but were brought down to the valleys were they were completed. They obtained their polish throughout their life, not necessarily during their manufacture. 

By Patricia Kenny

Inaugural Lecture 2014 and the launch of Trowel XV: what a wonderful evening!

All photographs from the event can be viewed here

Photographs by Sean Kinsella

On Thursday 20th November 2014, the Archaeological Society held its inaugural lecture. This year, we were delighted to welcome Prof. Chris Scarre from the University of Durham. Following a welcome speech from the society auditor, Micheal Butler, and a brief introduction from our Head of School, Prof. Gabriel Cooney, Prof. Scarre delivered an enlightening lecture on the topic of "Missing persons? Formal disposal and funerary practices in Prehistoric Britain". What a thrilling topic! A full report of the seminar will follow, but in a nutshell, Prof. Scarre challenged our assumptions about the archaeological record: we always think that what we dig, what we find, is a fragment of a bigger whole. We obsess over trying to figure out exactly what percentage of the wider picture our evidence represent. But does it really? Or - and especially in the case of the burial record, which was the topic of this lecture - was the reality in the past completely different? What if what we have is in fact the odd, the unusual, the uncommon? His is a very powerful argument which really challenges the way we look at the archaeological record. As I said, full report to follow! 

From left to right: Micheal Butler, Prof. Scarre and Prof. Cooney

This year, the Society decided to change the usual scenery of its inaugural lecture, and booked the FitzGerald debating chamber in the UCD Student centre. The acoustic was so good that the microphone was not needed! 

Following the lecture, the Society, in conjunction with the Trowel editorial team, held a wine and cheese reception. For indeed the evening was also the occasion for the launch of the 15th volume of the journal...

Prof. Muiris O'Sullivan delivering the speech that introduced the latest volume of Trowel

The gathered archaeologists were treated to a wonderful speech by Prof. Muiris O'Sullivan, who reflected on the history of Trowel, and its collaboration with the Society. Even if the two are now separate, Trowel did start off as the Society journal (and the very first issues, available on the Trowel website, bear witness to this). But the partnership between the journal and the Society lives on, and as Prof. O'Sullivan pointed out, the cover of this year's volume was designed by former Society member, Paula Moran, who was an Erasmus student with us last year. Prof'. O'Sullivan went on to praise the wide range of topics covered in the journal, and especially the new "UCDig" section, which features short reports from excavations around Ireland and beyond. It was an immense pleasure to host the inaugural lecture and launch the journal at the same time. 

We would like to thank everyone who came that evening and made it the wonderful event that it was.  All the photographs are available on the Society Flickr gallery. Our renewed thanks to Sean Kinsella for being our official photographer that night!

Yours dearly, 

Alexandra Guglielmi, webmaster

On behalf of the Archaeological Society 2014/2015 Committee

The Committee would like to thank you all for coming to the inaugural lecture 2014!

Seminar series 2014/15: "Forget about 'Heritage': Place, Ethics and the Faro Convention" By Dr. John Schofield

The next Seminar will be

"Forget about 'Heritage': Place, ethics and the Faro Convention"

By

Dr. John Schofield

Of

The University of York

Thursday the 27th of November Room
at 5:30pm 

Room A109 Newman building

************************************

CLICK HERE for all seminar posters and reports. 

Archaeology Christmas party!!!

Source: Archaeosoup

Dear all, 

The term is drawing to a close and I'm sure you are all looking forward to handing in your last assignments- I sure am! So in order to celebrate this (and don't think about exams for a little longer), we have organised a CHRISTMAS PARTY!

We will be gathering next Wednesday 26th November  from 7 pm in the upstairs room of the UCD Clubhouse Bar ! Yes, we have our own party room! The bar has amazing Party packages and there will be lots of free stuff for everyone. Watch this space for confirmation of the details, but a little elf has already told me something about free food and drink deals!

Everyone is welcome, bring your friends from other departments, we archaeologists know how to throw a good party and are friendly people! 

Looking forward to seeing you all there, 
Contact us for any question, 

Yours dearly, 
Alex, webmaster

Check out the new "EXAMS" section of the website

Dear everyone,

Exams are fast approaching but don't worry, we're here for you. We have created a brand new section on the website packed with advice from revision strategies to the late-night studying areas in UCD.

Click here to discover it!