Qub - Archaeology At Queen'S

We in ArcPal are hugely excited to announce that the second biennial Jack Kerr Memorial Lecture is to be presented by Dr Jago Cooper of the British Museum on Thursday 21st February 2019 in the Ulster Museum as part of the NI Science Festival.
How can we learn from the past to address the challenges of the future? The lecture will consider this question by drawing on recent research projects undertaken by Jago in the Americas. By examining how communities innovate and adapt to the challenges they face, he will consider what lessons can be learned to help all societies live through a current century of great global change.
Tickets are now available at the link below - book early because they will undoubtedly sell out fast!!!

Members of the ArcSoc recently took part in a debate with the QUB Literific Society on the topic of whether or not the dead have rights. The event was organised by ArcPal Level 2 student Lauren Carberry-O'Neill and the ArcSoc team comprised Level 1 student Lee Harrison, PhD student Rob Barratt and member of the Ranelagh Osteoarchaeology Project Lauren Halstead.
Dr Cormac McSparron opened the debate by providing context for the discussion, while Prof Eileen Murphy summed up the deliberations and closed the event. It was a very interesting and enjoyable experience and the teams on both sides of the argument did themselves proud!

Congratulations to former ArcPal PhD researcher (graduated 2017) Laura van der Sluis, Prof Paula Reimer and Dr Neil Ogle on their new paper just published in Archaeometry.

Exciting lecture lined up for the Ulster Archaeological Society on Monday 10th December, 8pm, Elmwood Building, Main Lecture Theatre.

ArcPal's Dr Paddy Gleeson will be a giving a lecture on 'Cult and Kingship in the First Millennium AD' at 1pm tomorrow in the Ulster Museum as part of the HED Seminar Series.

Members of the Ranelagh Osteoarchaeology Project recently ran a series of workshop on human osteoarchaeology that were attended by students from schools in Dublin and Roscommon as part of Science Week 2018. The event was organised in partnership with staff from Transport Infrastructure Ireland (Martin Jones, Ronan Swan and Lilian Butler) and the National Museum of Ireland (Siobhan McGarry and Annie Birney). Prof Eileen Murphy gave an introduction to some of the main findings of the burials at Ranelagh, while Sarah Gormley, Grace McAlister, Lauren Halstead and Jess White ran practical activities that enabled the students to try out some osteoarchaeological methods for themselves. The team all enjoyed working within the spectacular setting at Kildare Street.

The latest visitor to arcpal agrees that archaeology is the purrr-fect degree course!!!

Last week, colleagues in the 14CHRONO Centre hosted a visit by a group of 4th year archaeology students and 3rd year forensic students from the Institute of Technology, Sligo, and their lecturers Drs Carmel Moran and Aodhmar Cadogan.

The final lecture in the ArcPal lunchtime seminar series for Semester 1 will take place on Tuesday 4th December. All are welcome.

Dr Heather Montgomery was in Culmore Co. Derry yesterday delivering talks to P6 and P7 classes at both Culmore Primary School and Hollybrush Primary School. This was part of the Siege Heroes Museum's ongoing programme of community engagement. Heather was talking to the children about the 17th Century Culmore Fort. The work is supported by Heritage Lottery Fund (NI).

Some pictures from last night's talk by CAF's Ruairí Ó Baoill to Stewartstown History Society about the discoveries made on the recent QUB excavation at Mountjoy Fort, Brocagh, Co. Tyrone. Around 50 people turned up and it was great to see some old friends again and to meet new ones. Thanks to all who attended and to Patricia Ó Baoill who took the photographs!
Many thanks also to Lough Neagh Landscape Partnership who commissioned the excavation and Heritage Lottery Fund (NI) who funded it

This weekend, one of our third year undergraduates Dylan McGlynn attended African Archaeology Research Day at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research in Cambridge to present a poster on his undergraduate dissertation research on Zanzibar with Dr Laura Basell. The poster was well received, Dylan made many new contacts and listened to an enormously diverse array of talks. The varied programme included new studies of the Ugandan Luzira Heads to ancient DNA and new methods for presenting cultural heritage.

Some ArcPal graduates may remember Dr Lawrence Shaw who worked with us on the student training excavation at St Elizabeth's Church, Dundonald, in 2007 when he was a student at Bournemouth University.
He is now working as the Heritage Mapping and Data Officer at the New Forest National Authority, and recently they undertook a programme of geophysical survey via the use of horsepower - 'Dobinometry'.
The team featured on the BBC One - South Today programme on 22nd November (sa...dly no longer available) but you can see them in action in the clip below #horsepower. What a great idea!
https://twitter.com/i/status/106587536574 5303553
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On Monday evening (26th November), the CAF's Ruairí Ó Baoill will be giving a talk about the recent QUB excavation at Mountjoy Fort, Brocagh, Co. Tyrone to Stewartstown History Society. The talk is being held in the Crieve Centre, the Square, Stewartstown at 8pm. All welcome!

For their November session members of Belfast YAC played a hillfort-inspired board game, in a session led by leaders Dr Linda Boutoille and Dr Dirk Brandherm, where they battled to become Masters of various crafts (pottery, metalwork, agriculture). The ultimate aim of the game was to beome Master of Rathgall, a Bronze Age hillfort in Co. Wicklow. Each team came forward with their winner or 'master' and then they had a battle for the overall Master of Rathgall. You can see the winner here wearing the crown!

Details of the Royal Irish Academy's travel grant scheme for Early Career Researchers can be found below. Closing date Monday 7th January 2019.

The deadline for the Royal Irish Academy's Archaeology grant schemes is almost upon us - Monday 26th November.

This summer's undergraduate training excavation at Mountjoy Fort in Brocagh, County Tyrone, featured in Episode 9 of Joe Mahon's Lough Neagh tv programme on UTV last week. The programme also featured Joe's interview on community-based archaeological fieldwork with Dr Colm Donnelly, Director of the Centre for Archaeological Fieldwork. The episode can be watched on the UTV Player at:
https://www.itv.com/utvprogrammes/lough-n eagh

Thank you for all your fantastic work, it was well worth the visit to see it.

Great to see more history being discovered. Thank you. Great job.

Saw the ones at Tullaghoge fort on Saturday and It was great to see them at work and find out more history about the area. It was fantastic to see the latest Excavations. Thanks to Brian, Ruairi and everyone on the team for all their information and making me feel welcome.

Thank you for all your fantastic work, it was well worth the visit to see it.

Great to see more history being discovered. Thank you. Great job.

Saw the ones at Tullaghoge fort on Saturday and It was great to see them at work and find out more history about the area. It was fantastic to see the latest Excavations. Thanks to Brian, Ruairi and everyone on the team for all their information and making me feel welcome.

Thank you for all your fantastic work, it was well worth the visit to see it.

Great to see more history being discovered. Thank you. Great job.

Saw the ones at Tullaghoge fort on Saturday and It was great to see them at work and find out more history about the area. It was fantastic to see the latest Excavations. Thanks to Brian, Ruairi and everyone on the team for all their information and making me feel welcome.