The Shindig - An Archaeology Podcast

In 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'.

In 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!

In 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!

The 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.

We 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.

We 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!

The 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.

We 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.

An 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/