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  • If It Weren't For Those Pesky Kids: The Spatial Segregation of Children in An Early Medieval Cemetery Enclosure.

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    Brendon Wilkins
    148 views72 pages
    Death confronts us with the ultimate boundary through which we all inexorably pass. According to Derrida, awareness of our own mortality calls forth other intangible boundaries, such as ethical constraints to our freedom and the moral indelibility of our actions. Death is the decisive end point from which the legacy of our behaviour is irrevocably judged. It compels us to take personal responsibility, and this is perhaps what Benjamin Franklin was alluding when he wrote “In this world nothing could be said to be certain except death and taxes”. What then of the troublesome dead – those who lay beyond normal social categories or through their own deeds offend the very social order. In later medieval Ireland, strangers, suicides, or unrepentant murderers were rarely buried in consecrated ground. Unbaptised children were also treated differently in death, interred in Killeen cemeteries - liminal, clandestine places often reusing the early medieval settlement enclosures that had long since fallen out of use. The origin of this practice is often assumed to be associated with the adoption of Christianity, the Limbus Infantus of the medieval church that decreed baptism to be the threshold through which all must pass before entering Christian society, and without which incorporation into the society of the dead was impossible. This paper assesses the origins of this practice drawing on a recently excavated early medieval settlement cemetery from Carrowkeel, Co. Galway. The cemetery was in use for over 700 years, and the spatial segregation of children can be recognised in the early phases of the site. Was this segregation a precursor to the later medieval practice of Killeen burial? Did the adoption of Christianity elaborate the pre-existing boundaries of an early medieval society obsessed with status in life and its continuity into death? To understand how these nuanced conceptual and physical boundaries worked in the past, this paper begins by addressing the boundaries that divide our discipline in the present. Using Carrowkeel as a case study, this project illustrates how a multi-disciplinary team of specialists can work together to bridge the perceived gap between humanities and science-based research, and how this can be delivered within a time-bound development schedule.

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    If it weren’t for those pesky kids: the spatial segregation of children in an early medieval cemetery enclosure.

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    Death confronts us with the ultimate boundary through which we all inexorably pass. According to Derrida, awareness of our own mortality calls forth other intangible boundaries, such as ethical constraints to our freedom and the moral indelibility of our actions. Death is the decisive end point from which the legacy of our behaviour is irrevocably judged. It compels us to take personal responsibility, and this is perhaps what Benjamin Franklin was alluding when he wrote “In this world nothing could be said to be certain except death and taxes”. What then of the troublesome dead – those who lay beyond normal social categories or through their own deeds offend the very social order. In later medieval Ireland, strangers, suicides, or unrepentant murderers were rarely buried in consecrated ground. Unbaptised children were also treated differently in death, interred in Killeen cemeteries - liminal, clandestine places often reusing the early medieval settlement enclosures that had long since fallen out of use. The origin of this practice is often assumed to be associated with the adoption of Christianity, the Limbus Infantus of the medieval church that decreed baptism to be the threshold through which all must pass before entering Christian society, and without which incorporation into the society of the dead was impossible. This paper assesses the origins of this practice drawing on a recently excavated early medieval settlement cemetery from Carrowkeel, Co. Galway. The cemetery was in use for over 700 years, and the spatial segregation of children can be recognised in the early phases of the site. Was this segregation a precursor to the later medieval practice of Killeen burial? Did the adoption of Christianity elaborate the pre-existing boundaries of an early medieval society obsessed with status in life and its continuity into death? To understand how these nuanced conceptual and physical boundaries worked in the past, this paper begins by addressing the boundaries that divide our discipline in the present. Using Carrowkeel as a case study, this project illustrates how a multi-disciplinary team of specialists can work together to bridge the perceived gap between humanities and science-based research, and how this can be delivered within a time-bound development schedule.

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    148 views72 pages

    If It Weren't For Those Pesky Kids: The Spatial Segregation of Children in An Early Medieval Cemetery Enclosure.

    Uploaded by

    Brendon Wilkins
    Death confronts us with the ultimate boundary through which we all inexorably pass. According to Derrida, awareness of our own mortality calls forth other intangible boundaries, such as ethical constraints to our freedom and the moral indelibility of our actions. Death is the decisive end point from which the legacy of our behaviour is irrevocably judged. It compels us to take personal responsibility, and this is perhaps what Benjamin Franklin was alluding when he wrote “In this world nothing could be said to be certain except death and taxes”. What then of the troublesome dead – those who lay beyond normal social categories or through their own deeds offend the very social order. In later medieval Ireland, strangers, suicides, or unrepentant murderers were rarely buried in consecrated ground. Unbaptised children were also treated differently in death, interred in Killeen cemeteries - liminal, clandestine places often reusing the early medieval settlement enclosures that had long since fallen out of use. The origin of this practice is often assumed to be associated with the adoption of Christianity, the Limbus Infantus of the medieval church that decreed baptism to be the threshold through which all must pass before entering Christian society, and without which incorporation into the society of the dead was impossible. This paper assesses the origins of this practice drawing on a recently excavated early medieval settlement cemetery from Carrowkeel, Co. Galway. The cemetery was in use for over 700 years, and the spatial segregation of children can be recognised in the early phases of the site. Was this segregation a precursor to the later medieval practice of Killeen burial? Did the adoption of Christianity elaborate the pre-existing boundaries of an early medieval society obsessed with status in life and its continuity into death? To understand how these nuanced conceptual and physical boundaries worked in the past, this paper begins by addressing the boundaries that divide our discipline in the present. Using Carrowkeel as a case study, this project illustrates how a multi-disciplinary team of specialists can work together to bridge the perceived gap between humanities and science-based research, and how this can be delivered within a time-bound development schedule.

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    of 72

    If it weren’t for those pesky kids:

    the spatial segregation of children in an early


    medieval cemetery enclosure.

    Brendon Wilkins, Site Director


    How does our current thinking about boundaries
    prejudice our understanding of how physical and
    conceptual boundaries worked in the past?

    How were the boundaries of human bodies and


    personal identities policed, or deliberately broken
    down in the past, and what were the consequences
    of this?
    Carrowkeel, Co Galway
    Carrowkeel, Co Galway
    Carrowkeel, Co Galway
    Phase I AD 650-850

    Phase II AD 850-1050

    Phase III AD 1050-1250

    Phase IV AD 1250-1450

    132 individuals
    40 radiocarbon dates
    Phase I 650 – 850 AD

    SK 72: crouched
    Inhumation in ditch
    terminus. (UB-7423)
    cal AD 682-872.

    37 Individuals

    • 14% foetus
    • 8% perinate
    • 16% infant
    • 16% younger child
    • 5% adolescent
    Phase II 850 -1050AD

    SK 33 Older Child
    (UB-7482)
    cal AD 857-991

    75 Individuals

    • 27% foetus
    • 7% perinate
    • 4% neonate
    • 27% infant
    Phase III & IV 1050 - 1450AD

    SK 54 Foetus (UB-7419) cal AD 1340-1396

    20 individuals

    • 78% non adults


    • 44% below one year
    • No perinates/neonates
    • Or adolescents
    Cíllíní and their Context
    • Unique to Ireland
    • Most common in western
    counties
    • Generally Post-Medieval

    • Unbaptised children
    • Pregnant women
    • Suicides
    • Non-Catholics
    • Sailors
    • Murderers & their victims
    Cíllíní and boundaries
    • in the haggard
    • in ringforts
    • boundary fences
    • at cross-roads
    • the shelter of a bush
    • cliff ledges
    • outside graveyards
    • the edge of a tide
    • on a river or sea cliff
    • near a well
    • field corners
    • townland boundaries
    • beside marshy or wooded ground

    Dennehy, E. 2003. The History of Ceallunaigh in Co. Kerry. Kerry Archaeological and
    Historical Society Journal. Series 2 (2) 5-21.
    “In an unkempt space of dark,
    clinging
    grass, with stones scattered over it
    here and there.
    There he said, the islanders had
    been accustomed to
    bury suicides and un-baptised
    children; a sad association,
    I thought, of those who had known
    nothing and those who
    had known too much of life.”

    Flower, R. 1985 (1944). The Western Island or the Great Blasket. Oxford:
    Oxford University Press.
    Age Distribution
    Adult Adult
    Phase Period (AD) Foetus Infant Juvenile Total
    Male Female

    I 650 – 850 8 6 12 3 7 36

    II 850 – 1050 24 23 25 2 - 74

    III 1050 – 1250 3 5 5 2 1 16

    IV 1250 – 1450 2 - - - - 2

    37 34 42 7 8 132
    Total
    29% 27% 33% 5% 6% 100%
    Ecclesiastical Enclosures
    • Evidence of enclosure;
    • A burial area, normally in the southeast corner;
    • A place-name with an ecclesiastical element;
    • Structural remains;
    • A holy well within close proximity;
    • A Bullaun stone;
    carved or decorated stone cross or slab;
    • A townland boundary forming part of the enclosure;
    • Evidence for a souterrain;
    • A pillar stone;
    • A founders tomb;
    • And an associated traditional ritual or folk custom. 

    Swan, L. 1983. Enclosed ecclesiastical sites and their relevance to settlement


    patterns of the first millennium A.D.In Reeves-Smyth, T. and Hamond, F. (eds.)
    Landscape Archaeology in Ireland. BAR British Series 116
    Early medieval settlement and society

    Wood 1821: 269.


    Ringforts and Ecclesiastical Enclosures
    Landscape divisions
    Distribution of Early Christian sites in the
    barony of Garrycastle, Co. Offaly, highlighting
    the relationship between lay and ecclesiaitical
    elements of society.

    Stout, M. 1997. The Irish Ringfort.


    Dublin: Four Courts Press
    Early Christian tuath based on law tracts

    Model of the inter-relationships


    of ringfort dwelling freemen
    and the mutually advantageous
    links between ecclesiastical
    and secular settlement.

    Stout 1997: 124


    Myteum 1992: 12
    Collectico Canonum Hibernensis
    • Compilation of Canons
    written c. AD 650.

    • The reluctance of
    Christians to abandon
    their ancestral or familial
    cemeteries.

    • Jacob and Joseph


    carried from Egypt to be
    burried with their
    ancestors

    O’Brien, E. 1999. Post-Roman Britain to Anglo-Saxon England: Burial Practices Reviewed.


    Oxford: BAR British Series 289.
    Settlement Cemeteries?

    “…in the absence of substantial supporting evidence, it is not 
    permissible to claim that the hundreds of enclosed burial grounds
    are the sites of early monasteries… This leads to an alternative 
    proposition, namely that these sites were secular settlements of 
    small communities of the early medieval period, having their 
    origins in a non­Christian or pre­Christian society.” 

    Swan, L. 1983. Enclosed ecclesiastical sites and their relevance to settlement patterns of the first millennium
    A.D.In Reeves-Smyth, T. and Hamond, F. (eds.) Landscape Archaeology in Ireland. BAR British Series 116
    Segregation of Children

    • Raunds Furnells, England


    9th – 11th century

    • Whithorn St Ninian,
    Scotland
    8th – 9th century

    • Rock of Cashel, Co
    Tipperary
    12th century

    • Raystown, Co Meath
    7th -10th century
    Carrowkeel, Co Galway

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