Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Excavating death
Newford,
Ballygarraun,
and Carrowkeel
The Galway to Ballinasloe N6 road scheme in
the Republic of Ireland was 56km long: metre
for metre, one of the largest archaeological
projects anywhere in the world. The
archaeology found along the scheme has shed
new light on the treatment of the dead at
crucial stages of Irish history. Brendon Wilkins
explains the evidence.
T
he massive scale of the N6 road
scheme project was typical of
the Irish ‘Celtic Tiger’ economic
boom – a golden age for archaeo-
logical discovery, paid for by an
annual road building budget esti-
mated in 2005 at €1.5bn. Thirty-six sites were
All photos: Headland Archaeology Ltd unless otherwise noted.
in Galway
Late Neolithic/ Bronze Age Late Iron Age Multi-period Early Post Medieval
Early Bronze Age Bronze Age cemetary Medieval
Pyre constructed
above pit here
cremation pits do not contain enough material to You only die twice ABOVE The pyre
be a complete skeleton, and we must assume then following excavation
at Newford, showing
that only a token part of the cremated remains By carefully observing funerary customs in dif-
the large pit on which
are buried. It is not unusual to find cremation ferent types of societies all over the world, archae- firewood would have
pits (where remains are collected from a pyre and ologists can broaden the scope of their analysis. been stacked.
deposited in pits or funerary vases) but it is rare The anthropologist Robert Hertz used evidence
INSET One of 14 token
to find any evidence of the actual pyre. Remark- from contemporary traditional societies in
cremation pits containing
ably, as well as finding token cremation burials at Borneo, observing that funerary rituals can be miniscule quantities of
Newford (pits containing a miniscule quantity of divided into two separate actions – primary and burnt bone.
burnt bone and pyre debris), we also discovered a secondary burial rites – a distinction that high-
Above LEFT
Late Bronze Age funerary pyre dating to between lights the crucial difference between ‘physical’
Reconstruction of a
1000-800 BC, one of only a handful of such sites and ‘social’ death. Primary burial rites take place pyre made from stacked
ever found in Ireland. Token cremation burials are soon after physical death, and in Borneo this firewood, with the body
a typical feature, but normally contain such small entailed leaving the body to decay completely. laid on top.
quantities of bone that many archaeologists have Once the bones were de-fleshed, they were then
questioned what actually happens to the bone removed to their final resting place, where sec-
after burning. Here, the unique evidence found ondary burial rites could be performed. Hertz
at Newford provides a rare insight. argued that what happens physically to the body
The pyre had been constructed above a large after death symbolised beliefs about the progress
pit, 3.5m long by 2m wide and 0.75m deep, of the soul. Just as the decaying corpse is excluded
which would have aided in the updraft of flames. from the the world of the living, so the soul of
The pyre superstructure would have been con- the dead person cannot immediately enter the
structed from stacked firewood, with the body society of the dead: they are in an intermediate
laid on top. This structure had collapsed into state. Whilst primary rites may take place soon
the pit after burning, depositing about 700g of after an individual has physically died, social
human bone, including fragmentary remains of death will only occur after secondary burial rites
finger bones, teeth and skull. Modern cremation and a successful completed funerary ritual.
techniques result in the production of between Cremated human bone has been found often
1k and 3k of human bone from an adult body, on Irish Bronze Age settlement sites, in house
and we estimate that archaeological contexts foundations and ritual pits, leading some
should yield a similar quantity of burnt bone. archaeologists to argue that it was being used as
Using these estimates, it is clear that bone had a ‘social artefact.’ This seems like a bizarre prac-
been removed from the Newford pyre following tice to us now: how could burnt bone be used in
burning. Only 15g of bone was recovered from social contexts? But think of all the complex legal
cremation pits on site, suggesting that the rest of arrangements that have to be made when our
the charred remains may have been destined for own loved ones die. Death ruptures the fabric of
non-funerary uses. social relations and it is vital, following a funeral,
rough stone enclosing a settlement or church) a was that Carrowkeel was an Early Medieval enclo-
forgotten, however, and
souterrain, house sites, and a field system. sure, which had been reused in the Post Medieval
its boundaries were
Carrowkeel was founded in the 7th century respected by farming and period as a cíllín. It has actually turned out to be
AD. At this time, a great number of enclosed other activities. far more interesting: radiocarbon dating on over