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The Shindig - An Archaeology Podcast
Digging a Lost Viking Cemetery – with Adam Parsons
A Viking Cemetery in northern England: Adam Parsons of Oxford Archaeology tells us about the spectacular Cumwhitton Viking cemetery in Cumbria, subject of the brilliant ‘Shadows in the Sand: Excavation of a Viking-age Cemetery at Cumwhitton’, which Adam co-authored.
Initially discovered by metal detectorists Peter Adams and George when they found two Viking-style oval brooches, Oxford Archaeology excavated what turned out to be one of the most spectacular and important Viking cemeteries ever found in Britain. The seven furnished graves contained a truly remarkable selection of grave goods, including the remains of a wooden box containing shears, needles and a glass slickstone for smoothing fabric, with other graves containing items like amber beads, pins, silver rings, swords, axes, spears, spurs/buckles, and rare evidence for rugs and textiles. While few bones remained in the sandy soil, the burial items at Cumwhitton tell us of a society rich both in material culture but also in the cross-cultural contacts and borrowings that made Viking-Age Cumbria such a remarkable place.
From Cumwhitton, we move across Cumbria to Workington and the discovery of a huge early medieval cemetery under the burnt-out remains of St. Michael’s church. Excavated by Carlisle Archaeology, Adam and his colleagues completed the post-excavation work and wrote up the report on the amazing early medieval carved stones, inclusive of fragments of a newly-discovered ‘hogback’ stone, and multiple cemeteries, which include a mid-to-late 9th century grave with strong parallels to the Viking burials at Cumwhitton, underneath St. Michael’s.
With a focus on the northern Britons, we end with a fascinating discussion on the new multicultural world that was carved out in Cumbria and its surrounding regions in the Viking Age.
Adam Parsons is a brilliant archaeological illustrator, writer and editor with Oxford Archaeology who has worked in archaeology for over 20 years. What's more, he has devoted his spare time to being brilliant at early medieval public outreach, making exact reproductions of historical artefacts for museums, universities, and individuals and being part of Cumbraland, a living history group dedicated to portraying the 9th-11th century Brittonic Kingdom of Strathclyde. Adam is no stranger to online outreach, having large followings across his Blueaxe Reproductions social media channels on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and more!
Prof. Fiona Edmonds
Gaelic Influence in the Northumbrian Kingdom: The Golden Age and the Viking Age
Edmonds, F. 15/12/2019 Woodbridge : Boydell & Brewer. 322 p. ISBN: 9781783273362. Electronic ISBN: 9781787445864.
The expansion of the Kingdom of Strathclyde
Edmonds, F. 1/02/2015 In: Early Medieval Europe. 23, 1, p. 43-88. 46 p.
Prof. Stephen Driscoll
Driscoll, S.T. (2014) The Govan Stones. History Scotland, 14(1), pp. 36-37.
Dalglish, C., Driscoll, S.T. , Maver, I., Shead, N.F. and Shearer, I. (2009) Historic Govan: Archaeology and Development. Series: The Scottish burgh survey. Historic Scotland: Edinburgh, UK. ISBN 9781902771625
Driscoll, S.T. (1998) Church archaeology in Glasgow and the kingdom of Strathclyde. Innes Review, 49(2), pp. 95-114.
Cynthia Thickpenny
Thickpenny, Cynthia Rose (2019) Making key pattern in Insular art: AD 600-1100. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow. https://theses.gla.ac.uk/41009/
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6. Irish Greenways and Rejuvenating Historic Infrastructures - With Dr. Enda O'Flaherty
56:44In this episode, our own Dr. Enda O Flaherty talks about heritage infrastructure preservation in Ireland, with a particular focus on the fascinating development of 'greenways', which can be defined as linear active-travel paths, parks, or areas of cultural interest that often incorporate historic (linear) infrastructure like defunct railway lines. We explore the challenges of balancing the needs of new and rejuvenated infrastructure with the heritage value of existing environments and delve into the impacts of infrastructure projects on rural Ireland and the potential of greenways to provide alternatives to car reliance. Importantly, Enda discusses the importance of the distinction of creating a culturally and historically resonant 'place' versus a mere 'space'.
5. Exploring Ireland's Viking-Age Towns, with Dr. Rebecca Boyd
01:40:09In this episode, we talk to Dr. Rebecca Boyd about the fascinating topic of Viking-Age towns in Ireland, from how Vikings helped create the first urban settlements, to discovering the smells, sights and sounds of daily life within a home. For the big picture, we chat about Scandinavian-influenced urbanism across Viking-Age Ireland and Europe, but balance this with a focus on the microscopic patterns and cadences of life and work in Viking-Age town houses in towns like Dublin. The vital role of developer-led archaeology in the study of Viking-Age towns in Ireland is key to much of Rebecca's research and Rebecca's new book, Exploring Ireland's Viking-Age Towns: Houses and Homes, which is a brilliant exploration of towns and urban life and one we heartily recommend to all of our listeners!
4. Building a Broch - with the Caithness Broch Project
48:25In this episode, Dr. Tom talks with Kenneth and Kirsty from the Caithness Broch Project, a pioneering scheme to build a ‘broch’ – massive Iron-Age drystone towers concentrated in Caithness, northern Scotland – for the first time in 2,000 years.Brochs are the tallest prehistoric structures found in Britain or Ireland, with these ‘pinnacles of prehistoric Scottish architecture’ potentially reaching over 15m in height! Their use is not certain – community-centred domestic use seems most likely – but the monumental scale suggests they were built to impress and act as highly-visible centres of their farming communities.The challenge of building a broch in the modern day is huge, but the Project has now selected the perfect site for the Big Broch Build and its mission to ensure heritage-based regeneration of Caithness, a region facing massive depopulation and job losses, can now continue apace!
3. Taking The Devil's Dollar: Blockade Runners and The Confederate Clyde with Dr. Ryan K McNutt
01:08:32The Devil's Dollar: In this US Civil War episode, Dr. Ryan K. McNutt talks about the Union's attempted naval blockade of Confederate ports. More than this, however, Ryan discusses the dark secret at the heart of official British neutrality: Clyde-built 'blockade runners', fast and agile shallow-drafted paddle steamers that could evade Union patrols on their short dashes to and from the Caribbean, were key to the Confederate war economy, bringing in European arms and luxury goods to Southern ports in exchange for the slave-harvested cotton that kept the British economy growing. Shocking and fascinating in equal measure, Ryan talks about his research into the dark dealings of the Glasgow and Clyde shipbuilders and discusses the remarkable range of British, Irish and Continental industries kept afloat by the devil's dollar.
2. Trumpington's Anglo-Saxon Teen VIP Revealed - With Dr. Alice Rose, Dr. Emma Brownlee & Dr. Sam Leggett
01:36:11We enter the world of the 7th-century Anglo-Saxon Trumpington Cross burial, from the vanishingly rare - and stunning - gold and garnet pectoral cross found on the teenager's chest and the bed on which she was buried, to this young woman's distant origins in central Europe. Drs. Leggett, Rose and Brownlee talk about a fascinating range of topics, including potential cultural links between early medieval England and Southern Germany, the significance of pectoral crosses found in high-status female burials, the role of women in the Christianization of England, isotopic and aDNA analysis in archaeology, diet and mobility in the past, and the bed burial phenomenon in 7th-century Germany and England. We also talk about the ongoing exhibition, Beneath Our Feet: Archaeology of the Cambridge Region, 'a new exhibition at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology explores the traces of where people have lived, worked and died for thousands of years in Cambridgeshire', which features the Trumpington Cross burial.Read the University of Cambridge web story about the burial and the exhibition here: https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/trumpington-cross-burial-facial-reconstruction-new-evidence-revealedThe Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology - MAA: https://maa.cam.ac.uk/ | https://www.museums.cam.ac.uk/events/beneath-our-feet-archaeology-cambridge-regionOur thanks to Tom Almeroth-Williams, Communications Manager (Research) of the University of Cambridge Office of External Affairs for use of copyright images and all other help with this episode.
1. Meet our Archaeologists - with Hannah Sims
01:12:19We chat with the Red River Archaeology Group's Graphics & IT Manager Hannah Sims about her life in archaeology and the fascinating and intricate world of archaeological illustration!
16. The Bone Chests - With Dr. Cat Jarman
51:15The Bone Chests of Winchester Cathedral: We talk with Dr. Cat Jarman about her best-selling book, The Bone Chests, which tells the remarkable archaeological and historical detective story of the Winchester Cathedral chests that purport to hold the remains of some of the most famous kings, queens and bishops in the history of England and Wessex! It's an amazing true story of cutting-edge science and ancient bones, and the tumultuous centuries the skeletal remains have seen and - despite the best efforts of Roundhead iconoclast soldiers - survived.
15. Irish Prehistoric Rock Art - with Clare Busher O'Sullivan
53:55We marvel at the beauty of the prehistoric phenomenon of 'Atlantic Rock Art', most known for its distinctive yet enigmatic cup-and-ring marks, that swept Atlantic Europe from the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, but did you know about the race to record and protect it? In this episode, Clare Busher O'Sullivan talks with Tom about her fascinating work on Atlantic Rock Art in south-west Ireland, and the high-tech drive to record and help preserve the open-air examples of these beautiful and ancient stone carvings before they are damaged or even destroyed by a combination of natural and human-led processes.
14. Neolithic Crannogs in the Western Isles of Scotland – A Dig It! Special with Prof. Duncan Garrow
26:37An almost incredible discovery has been made in Scotland’s stunning Western Isles: human-made islets in lochs, known in Scotland and Ireland as crannogs, were being constructed by Neolithic communities. Previously, these remarkable sites, phenomena both of waterside habitation and ritual activity, had been thought to be a development of the Late Bronze Age or early Iron Age, but new archaeological research is showing far earlier origins, in a revelation with major ramifications for how we view not only the Scottish but also the European Neolithic periods.Join us for this Dig It! special as we chat with Professor Duncan Garrow of the Islands of Stone project and the University of Reading to hear about the amazing survivals of Neolithic pottery and organic artefacts that are changing the way we look at these wonderful feats of house engineering and ritual practice.Islands of Stone: https://crannogs.soton.ac.uk/A note from our wonderful Dig It! partners:Dig It! is coordinated by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland and primarily funded by Historic Environment Scotland.Dig It! is a hub for Scottish archaeology coordinated by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. Our mission is to increase understanding of and engagement with archaeology for Scotland-based audiences by providing promotion and support to the heritage sector and enabling other sectors and excluded communities to connect with archaeology. One example of this is our annual Scotland Digs summer fieldwork campaigns and for 2023, we’re excited to be working with the Red River Archaeology Group to produce special episodes of The Shindig podcast to showcase a few of the fantastic archaeological projects taking place across the country.Dig It! website: https://www.digitscotland.com/Dig It! Digest: https://www.digitscotland.com/contact-us/newsletter/