Seandálaíocht - Irish for Archaeology

Head on over to charcoal.seandalaiocht.com and read the update on a recent experimental charcoal production experiment I was involved in with Niall Kenny. We attempted to reconstruct and early medieval pit kiln from Russagh 4 and a mound kiln too with mixed results.

There's a summary blog post on the site now but we'll be adding more images and eventually a video to the site as we get time. Niall is going to have another go at charcoal making at Smelt 2010 and hopefully with the lessons we've learned from this experiment it will be a big success.

Last month I noticed a very flattering note on the Eachtra website about myself and this site. It invites comment from me but unfortunately I can't see anywhere to comment on their website so I decided I might just waffle away here as usual.

The title of the Eachtra post was "Brian Dolan + Web 2.0 = www.seandlaiocht.com". While being aware of the concept of Web 2.0 I had never previously thought about it in relation to myself or to archaeology.So what is Web 2.0?

Well, its difficult to say and I'm not going into the details, that's what wikipedia is for, but basically its a way of describing a theoretical 'new version' of the internet. To me at least, its talking about an internet that isn't just consumed by everybody but can be easily created and changed without esoteric knowledge about Java, C++, html or any number of other scary abbreviations that are almost meaningless to the majority of the non Star Trek loving population of the planet (not that I have any problem with Star Trek).  

Essentially it's sites like YouTube, Facebook and and Flickr which allow you to interact with the web, create your own space and interact with other people online. Sites like Weebly (the service I use to publish this blog) and Google Apps allow web publication without ANY programming knowledge. Basically if you can use a word processor you can now have a presence on the net. 

So what has Web 2.0 got to do with archaeology? Well, so much and at the same time so little. Its all about potential and a few sites (including Eachtra's with its excellent online journal , nominated for an Irish Web Award in 2009 btw) have begun to embrace it and change the way people interact with archaeological information, data and research.

Web 2.0 has huge potential to change the way archaeology is viewed in Ireland. Dissemination has been one of the buzzwords in the discipline for the last five years but I have heard little talk about how the internet can transform how we disseminate to the public. The potential to reach out to the public, to inform and, excitingly, to interact is gigantic.

Irish archaeology's response to the internet has been mixed. Some interesting and useful steps have been taken with online bibliographies, databases and mapping (e.g. Archaeology.ie, Excavations.ie, EMAP) but these are generally aimed at those already interested and they aren't exactly user friendly. Many commercial sites provide summaries of excavations, some make reports available and one even has a blog (not that it is much used). However there are plenty of very basic commercial sites out there and some of the archaeology pages on the internet I most use (Thadeus Breen's and Conor McDermott's sites)  are still decidedly web 1.0.. Academia has done little more and the University webpages are nothing if not boring. Where are the academic blogs? The rich video and audio content or the electronic publications?

In reality it has been left to enthusiast sites such as Megalithomania and Mythical Ireland to 'give the people what they want'; including detailed maps of sites, basic information (sometimes not as accurate or up to date as it could be but where are the professionals providing info?), videos, photos and lots of other content.

Hopefully I'm not coming over too preachy and I am aware that this site and its subdomains (smelt.seandalaiocht.com and charcoal.seandalaiocht.com) are by no means perfect but they do show some of what is possible with no programming knowledge, practically no money and a bit of time. Future plans for the site include a database of Irish iron sites based on my PhD research, an interactive map of the same and more articles, presentations, videos and photos. There is nothing stopping any other archaeologist starting a site and sharing a little of what they know and are interested in with the public who ultimately pay their wages (or, more likely these days, their dole!). 

The move to better websites in Irish archaeology is already noticeable with the trend for almost every INSTAR project to have a website (for a list see here) and the recently updated Discovery Programme pages.  However we can do more. Sites like Scribd and Issuu make it free to publish online; Google and Bing's mapping services offer the potential to create accessible geospatial data at no cost; and Youtube and Vimeo do the same for the distribution of video and audio.

Lectures and books are not the only way to tell people about archaeology. We don't need to make it more interesting, we all know its already fascinating, but it would do no harm to make it all a little bit easier for the man on the street. Call it benevolent self-interest: the more people get interested in archaeology and value it, the more chance they'll be happy to fund it.

I found out about a newly discovered Viking house located behind the Four Courts in Dublin (Hammond Lane/Church Street) at the weekend through a friend working on the site but it has now trickled through to the national news. It was featured on Morning Ireland yesterday morning through a five minute interview with Margaret Gowen, complete with obligatory northside/southside comment at the end. You can listen to it on their podcast of the whole programme or just the interview below:

As a bonus, you can also see the report broadcast on the six-one news by clicking here or watch the whole programme on the RTE Player (skip to about 37 minutes in for the juicy bit). Also an Irish Times article here.

The deadline for proposals for both papers and posters to be presented at the AYIA annual conference 2010 has been extended until the 25th of January. Anyone attending should also have a look at the new constitution being proposed for the conference which can be downloaded from the association's website. 

RTE rarely ventures into the mysterious waters of archaeology, usually preferring the well-trodden path of civil war and later politics when dipping its toes in the pond of history. Two recent series, Secrets of the Stones (free to watch on the RTE player here) and Blood of the Ancestors have begun what is hopefully a change in this mysterious aversion to archaeology which afflicts the corridors of power in Donnybrook.

However, while we wait for a full series (with more than two episodes) dedicated to Ireland's history prior to the Norman invasion we must be sated with the usual tidbits. The latest comes in the form of an episode of Nationwide which deals with an attempted full-scale facsimile of the Newgrange entrance and chamber as well as some recently discovered rock-art at Loughcrew. The episode is fairly well made and features some eminent archaeologists who acquit themselves well.

However, the show left me cold. It barely scratched the surface of what is interesting about Newgrange and Loughcrew and focused more on the group of (art) students who had built the Newgrange reconstruction as part of a class project. It left me and I'm sure most of the other viewers with a curiosity about the many interesting questions raised that would take a whole series to address (hint hint RTE).

While I applaud those archaeologists who took part in the programme I just wish our national broadcaster would get serious about the huge heritage area that is archaeology. Not only would it find a ready-made audience, it would probably end up with a product it could sell world-wide to the gigantic diaspora with an interest in their ancestor's past. When I look at the high quality of archaeological programming across the water it really does make me wonder why we can't expect and receive just a little bit more than half hour specials and a few very rare two-part series.

See the Nationwide episode here and Secrets of the Stones here.

For those of you out there interested in experimental archaeology or who, like me, are latent pyromaniacs who gave up smoking for the new year I'm happy to let you know about a unique opportunity.

Niall Kenny has organised an experimental charcoal making event which will be taking place in Meath, starting Sunday week. That's assuming the ground isn't frozen solid or covered in snow!

Niall has done a lot of research into early charcoal making in Ireland and hopes to re-create an archaeologically excavated charcoal pit kiln (and possibly a mound kiln as well). I'm tagging along and the hope is that if the experiment is successful I can use the resulting charcoal in my smelt in March.

Anyone interested is welcome to come along and have a look but it is essential that you let us know that you will be visiting as it takes place on private land.

More information can be found on the project's website.