Environmental Archaeology is of relatively recent currency, not developing into a loose coalition of specialist studies until the late 1970s when the Association for Environmental Archaeology was set up in Britain. As in Britain before the 1970s, in Ireland various formative pieces of research/scholarship were carried out that would now be referred to as environmental archaeology–for example Frank Mitchell’s study of pollen sequences in association with artefacts and sites found in bogs during the early 1950s and the Goodland project in Co. Antrim, a joint study that involved Humphrey Case, Frank Mitchell, Bruce Proudfoot and Geoffrey Dimbleby.
This paper will explore in brief the development of environmental archaeology in Ireland from its early beginnings in the twentieth century until the present. A particular focus will be on research of bioarchaeological material, especially the remains of plants. A further feature will be a survey of the development of environmental archaeology in third level education in Ireland. Reference will be made to the reasons for the initial slow take-off of environmental archaeology in Ireland, in comparison to the situation with Britain. A critique of present day cultural management practices and their consequence which mitigates against an organised approach to environmental archaeological work will also be provided. Some suggestions of the way forward will be made with particular reference to developments in the study of plant macrofossils.
The practice of Environmental Archaeology has been slow to take off in Ireland. This is not to say that there has been any shortage of research into past environments; rather that in Ireland work originating from strictly archaeological questions has been minimal.
A particularly important area of palaeoenvironmental research has been palynology (see Plunkett, this volume). The science of pollen analysis was first introduced into Ireland from Scandinavia. There was, for example, the pioneering work of Gunnar Erdtman in the 1920s in the north-west and then, in the 1930s, Knud Jessen carried out the earliest work in the south-west and was responsible for teaching Frank Mitchell the analytical techniques (Erdtman 1928; Jessen 1949; Mitchell 1945; 1951; 1965). Over the years a substantial number of palynological researchers have come into Ireland to avail themselves of the deeply stratified sub-fossil bearing organic deposits in bogs and lakes. Local laboratories for such studies have been set up at Trinity College Dublin, Queen’s University Belfast and the Department of Botany at the National University of Ireland Galway (Palaeoecological Research Unit). The excellence achieved in palynology in Ireland has been recognised outside the island, while within the country this success was formative in the foundation of IQUA (Irish Quaternary Association) over 25 years ago. The outcome of nearly 80 years of pollen studies, and refinements of the technique, has been the improvement of resolution in the picture of regional vegetation change from the post-glacial until the near present (O’Connell and Molloy 2000). A key feature of vegetation change is the anthropogenic influence, especially after the establishment of farming. Over the last 30 years many palynological studies in Ireland have been undertaken close to, or in association with, archaeological sites–for example, Beaghmore and Ballynagilly, Co. Tyrone; Cashelkeelty, Co. Kerry; Loughnashade, Co. Armagh; the Céide Fields, Co. Mayo and Mooghaun, Co. Clare (Pilcher 1969; Pilcher and Smith 1979; Lynch 1981; Weir 1993; Molloy and O’Connell 1995; O’Connell et al. 2001).
Those areas of environmental archaeology that we more usually associate with the sub-discipline–i.e. macro- and micro- plant remains and faunal remains (bioarchaeology) and soils and sediment studies associated with archaeological sites and landscapes (geoarchaeology)–have been far slower to develop. There have been a number of important developments, however, and it has become increasingly standard to put in place sampling strategies for the recovery of plant and faunal remains from excavations. At times, environmental archaeologists have also been attached to excavation projects specifically for the purposes of advising and undertaking sampling.
The slow up-take of environmental archaeological research has resulted from a combination of factors amongst which has been the lack of emphasis on this aspect of the discipline in the education of archaeologists. It could equally be argued that it has been a consequence of a change of focus in archaeological theory. Environmental archaeology, as a coalition of different specialities, developed from the natural sciences and did so in Britain at a time when archaeology as a discipline was increasingly looking to, and drawing from, science for the purposes of gaining a clearer understanding of issues such as subsistence and environment. This was a time during which the theoretical paradigm of processual archaeology had grown out of systems theory as applied in ecology and geography. At the same time archaeology was increasingly being seen as a science itself (Johnson 1999, 22–5, 34–40, especially 35–7). These ideas had only limited impact in Ireland where, overall, the critical mass of archaeologists was small, especially by comparison to the frequency of extant archaeological sites and artefacts they had to curate and research. Archaeological training stressed description and typology, and interpretation was driven by cultural historical priorities as influenced by the ideas of diffusion (Herity and Eogan 1977; also Waddell 1978; 1998; Cooney 1995).
Some archaeologists in the 1960s and early 1970s were, however, looking beyond Ireland to ideas and practices which were being undertaken elsewhere–not least Martin Jope at Queen’s University Belfast and M. J. O’Kelly in University College Cork. The former was a biochemist and a polymath and the latter was a civil engineer turned archaeologist. In Belfast, while there was no specific environmental archaeology course as such, a B.Sc. degree programme in archaeology developed. Close ties were also maintained with the Palaeoecology Centre which was set up as a result of an initiative by the archaeologically inclined palaeoecologist, Alan Smith, in conjunction with Martin Jope.
In the south, from a very early stage in his fieldwork, M. J. O’Kelly called on advice from natural scientists. For example, in 1950 he enlisted the advice of soil scientists to explain the soil formation processes responsible for deposits discovered during his excavations at Moneen multiple cist cairn, Co. Cork (O’Kelly 1951). O’Kelly also networked with environmental archaeological scientists in Britain and on the continent. He invited scholars from the Instituut voor Prae-en Protohistorie (IPP), University of Amsterdam, to participate at his excavations at Newgrange (O’Kelly 1982). From this collaboration came Louise van Wijngaarden-Bakker’s important study of the Newgrange animal bone and Jan Peter Pals and Willy Groenman-van Waateringe’s work on the pollen and plant remains from the site (van Wijngaarden-Bakker 1974; 1986; Groenman-van Waateringe and Pals 1982). The link with IPP also resulted in two University College Cork (UCC) students studying at the Institute in Amsterdam. Anne Lynch studied palynology with Willy Groenman-van Waateringe, completing and publishing her Ph.D. on Man and Environment in S.W. Ireland in 1981 (Lynch 1981), while Finbar McCormick went to IPP to study with Louise van Wijngaarden-Bakker and to learn the craft of animal bone analysis. He completed his Masters degree in University College Cork in 1982 and later moved to Queen’s University Belfast where he completed his Ph.D. (McCormick 1982; 1987), and is now employed as a senior lecturer.
The appointment of the current author in Cork overlapped with and enhanced the benefits of this initiative for the Department of Archaeology in University College Cork. Until relatively recently the two courses offered by the Department were the only undergraduate courses specifically described as covering environmental archaeology available to students based in Ireland. These courses have been taught within the context of a B.A. degree programme. The intention has been to provide students with a background in environmental archaeology, rather than to train environmental specialists. The current advanced option course, however, also includes practicals on plant and animal remains and has an assessed component. Over the 25 years that this programme has been running a number of students from Cork have gone on to undertake specialised Masters courses both in Ireland and elsewhere on various aspects of environmental archaeology. Increasing interest in the subject in Ireland as a whole in recent years has also resulted in students from other universities in Ireland similarly leaving the island to acquire specialist training within the broad field of environmental archaeology. Several of these former students from Cork and elsewhere have continued to work within the profession in Ireland and indeed this number has increased in the last few years with the rise of contract archaeology and a slow but sure increase in awareness amongst archaeologists, that the results of environmental archaeology can provide information of central importance to almost all aspects of archaeological field work.
Of particular note, in the past, has been Siobhan Geraghty’s study of the plant remains from Fishamble Street, Woodquay, Dublin. With the enthusiasm and encouragement of Patrick Wallace, the site director at the time, and the support of the National Museum and then, later, Trinity College Dublin (as well as the Royal Irish Academy), Geraghty’s work came to fruition and was published in 1996 (Geraghty 1996). Shortly after the field component of the Woodquay project was completed, by Siobhan Geraghty, the Department of Archaeology in University College Cork became involved in archaeological field work in advance of the Cork to Dublin Gas pipeline (Cleary et al. 1987). This project provided an opportunity for several environmental archaeologists, including the present author, to initiate work on a number of diverse sites along the route. The Department’s active role in research and rescue excavations both within and outside the city during the early 1980s continued to provide opportunities for environmental archaeological studies. In many ways the results of this work has laid the foundation for much of the subsequent environmental archaeological research that took place during the urban archaeological campaigns of the later 1980s and early 1990s, and which has culminated in several publications, most notably the major report for the Waterford City excavations (Hurley et al. 1997; Tierney and Hannon 1997).
The extent of environmental work has been patchy, influenced by the resourcing of the projects, concerns of the project managers, as well as the availability and differing interests of specialists. It is perhaps an indictment of the profession as a whole that in almost 25 years the importance of environmental work has not developed to the extent that it should have. Crucial research work has, however, been undertaken as part of the Discovery Programme and Wetland Unit campaigns in the south and the Palaeoecology Centre, Queen’s University Belfast, in the north of the island. Despite the important work undertaken by these organisations, there has not been the same support for environmental archaeology outside individual efforts within the universities. The problem, I believe, lies primarily in the education of archaeologists but also in the lack of consistent support from the institutions of the state in both the north and the south of the island, for which environmental archaeology has not been a priority. Environmental archaeological work has been undertaken on state funded projects (e.g. the excavations at Dublin Castle), but such work has not been consistently undertaken in the face of decreasing resources. State funded laboratories similar to those present in Britain and Holland, for example, or indeed regionally funded university-based environmental archaeologists are non-existent within an Irish context.
The lack of consistent employment has up until recently, with the advent of commercial companies, dissuaded potential researchers from investing time in pursuing a career in environmental archaeology. Most of those with Masters’ qualifications in environmental archaeology have either left the subject entirely or have moved into other areas of the discipline. Most work for archaeologists, currently, is in developer-funded fieldwork where increasingly the prime concern has been to ‘stay on the right side of the developer’ who, under planning conditions pertaining to the development, is obliged to pay for the site’s ‘resolution’ before development can take place. This means that the developer is in the position to set the price, hence relatively expensive systematic environmental sampling and studies would not be seen as primary to the resolution of the stratigraphy and dating of the site. In consequence environmental archaeological work often comes low down on the budget for such sites, if it is present at all.
The theoretical paradigm has also changed. The orthodoxy of processual archaeology was challenged in the 1980s and over the last 20 years the close association with the natural sciences has gone out of fashion. It now seems to be the view that the results of scientific analysis of material evidence of past peoples, including environmental remains, ranks lower ‘in value’ as against the discussion of the social meaning and aesthetics of cultural material remains (artefacts). This has generally slowed down the development of most scientific applications in archaeology, with the exception of DNA analysis and perhaps also areas such as stable isotope analysis of human remains (Ambrose 1993; Richards and Hedges 1999; Richards 2000). In Ireland where there has been minimal education in scientific methods in archaeology, and the more cultural historical inclined humanities approach has been to the fore, the embryonic growth of environmental archaeology remained stunted until recently. It is also a fact that there have been hardly any Irish archaeologists who embraced fully processual archaeological theory. This situation contrasts with the present where the new orthodoxy of post-processual (interpretative) archaeology has attracted the interest of a number of Irish-based archaeologists, including some who have been very supportive of environmental archaeological approaches (e.g. Fredengren 2002). This is easily explicable as the various post-processual theories, derived from European philosophies, fit better the mindset of arts educated archaeologists. There should therefore be no surprise that these ideas have been taken on with some enthusiasm by a number of Irish archaeologists, although this influence is still, at the time of writing, in its early stages and there have been few publications displaying an overt influence. Christina Fredengren’s (2002) pioneering book on crannógs has clearly been informed by post-processual thinking as has Tadhg O’Keeffe’s (2004) book on round towers. Another example is Gabriel Cooney’s Landscapes of Neolithic Ireland, which significantly, draws heavily on results derived from environmental archaeology (Cooney 2000, see pages 34–45 for examples).
Writing during the early twenty-first century it is clear that change has been taking place again and, as was the case during the early 1980s, this has been generated by an upsurge in fieldwork in response to the demands of modern developments threatening the archaeological resource. A younger generation of archaeologists, some of whom have gained their first degree in Irish archaeology and then acquired postgraduate training in science-based archaeology outside Ireland, have come back to pursue their careers here. These individuals are finding more regular long-term employment in environmental archaeology within commercial archaeological companies and to a lesser extent in the universities. For the first time in Ireland there is beginning to be a critical mass of consistently employed individuals willing to make a longer-term investment in this area of the discipline. As such, the future of environmental archaeological work in Ireland is brighter than it has ever been before.
I feel, however, that it is still necessary to persuade our more culturally inclined colleagues of the fundamental contribution that the results of environmental archaeology can make, not least at the fieldwork level, where environmental studies can provide the context for all other material remains. At the interpretative level such research can provide the broader context for past human behaviour and especially in the interaction of past humans with their environment and with each other (and for both in more areas than the subsistence arena). This broader context has been highlighted by the late John Evans (2003), in a recent challenging book, where he argued that our perspective needs to change. His argument is that environmental archaeology is well positioned to provide the evidence, from both sites and landscapes, for what he feels is the main motive for all human endeavour–societal interaction. He sees this as a particularly strong motivating force, for example, in the adoption of the procedures and practices of farming (Evans 2003, 225–9).
The lesson of the 1980s upsurge of environmental archaeology in Ireland that needs to be ‘taken on board’ this time is that the level of interest in environmental archaeology both within and outside the profession will not be maintained simply by it acting as a ‘service industry’ for the rest of the profession. It is necessary to produce and publish challenging work in thematic articles and books as well as accessible papers in general publications and local journals. Prompt and regular publications as part of collaborations with colleagues within the profession as a whole will, I feel, play a key role in sustaining the interest in the sub-discipline.
The legacy I inherited when I came to Ireland consisted of the work of Jessen and Helbaek and their seed imprint studies of the 1940s as well as Frank Mitchell’s individual studies of groups of macro-plant remains; some published and some not (Jessen and Helbaek 1944; Mitchell 1967, 101). I will always be indebted to Frank Mitchell for his generosity of advice and for passing over to me the results of his studies as well as consistently encouraging those colleagues willing to listen in regard to the importance of environmental studies in the Republic of Ireland.
My intention in the first number of years in Cork was to develop a database of work that had been undertaken on plant remains and develop a framework for interpretation. A number of archaeological directors encouraged and facilitated this project and to them I owe a great deal for their support and access to their archaeological records. Most of this work, but not all, has been published, for example, in M. J. O’Kelly’s (1982) account of the excavations at Newgrange, Co. Meath, and in P. C. Woodman’s (1985) report on the excavations at Mount Sandel, Co. Londonderry. In the mid-1980s I published a paper entitled ‘Evidence from Macroscopic Plant Remains for Crop Husbandry in Prehistoric and Early Historic Ireland: A Review’ within the Journal of Irish Archaeology, the objective of which was to provide a framework for future research (Monk 1986). There were certainly various influences on my approach at that time, not least of these was a perceived need to demonstrate the importance of crop husbandry in Ireland’s past agricultural economy in the face of the pastorally dominated model then current. I also wanted to show how simple it was to get a basic idea of the pattern of crop husbandry in general, but at the same time point out potential biases within the data, especially when it was largely based on individual caches of charred remains. It was also an explicit decision to focus primarily on crop plant remains and not other remains from archaeological sites. This emphasis reflected my own research interests at the time but was also intended to draw the wider discipline’s attention towards the importance of studies on macro-plant remains as opposed to pollen, which had been the focus for environmental studies up until then.
This paper has indeed provided the base line against which subsequent work has been compared and will continue to do so until those working on archaeobotany synthesise recent work to challenge that framework; this should be a priority. This author’s (1986) paper has also been referenced in general discussions of prehistoric and early subsistence economy and farming (Cooney and Grogan 1994; Waddell 1998). I and others have subsequently followed that work by focusing on the Early Medieval period in Ireland as a whole, and in Munster in particular (Monk 1991a; Monk et al. 1998).
The way forward is, at one level, to bring together the disparate pieces of work that have been carried out under the auspices of developer-led archaeology over the last few years and discuss how our knowledge has moved on since the early/mid-1980s. However, much of this more recent work is, for various reasons, inaccessible because it forms a part of a wider excavation project and is viewed by the directors of those projects as part of the site and in a sense their ‘property’. Under the excavation licensing system it is indeed their responsibility and the presentation of this work, as they see it, can only take its place within the context of the overall excavation report. Current licensing requirements in the Republic of Ireland require the excavator to lodge preliminary reports (some lodge completed reports, although seldom in publishable form) with the licensing authority. Once this has been undertaken, the pressure to bring the work to full publication is reduced and many excavation reports have remained in this limbo, relatively inaccessible, for many years. There is no straightforward way of even making an assessment of how many of these reports contain environmental archaeological work. In advance of publication the annual excavation summary accounts, edited by Isabel Bennett and published by Wordwell, provide an invaluable source of information. Without the free flow of such information research developments in environmental archaeology, as indeed in other areas, will remain restricted. There are signs that this situation is changing, however, and many archaeological companies/institutions have developed web-sites from which access can be gained to the results of a diverse range of archaeological projects. They are also increasingly happy to permit access to their work when contacted. The appointment of archaeologists by the National Roads Authority has also enabled easier access to information recovered during excavations in advance of road schemes. Brian Duffy, the chief archaeologist of the Heritage Service of the Department of Environment, Heritage and Local Government, has also announced that he is actively exploring the possibility of putting all archaeological reports, submitted to his office as part of the license requirement, on the internet.
Ease of access to recent macro-plant remains’ reports would enable archaeobotanists to identify themes and questions that could develop from such new data. It would then be possible to concentrate on different periods, or on the transition phases between them to see, for instance, whether cultural changes are reflected in non-cultural material. Potential exists for such work for most past time periods not least the Bronze Age and Later Medieval periods. The former period is in fact the subject of Ph.D. research by Meriel McClatchie at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, and I look forward to the results of her valuable study (see McClatchie, this volume).
One theme raised by Geraghty in her study of the Later Early Medieval Fishamble Street, Dublin, remains was the extent to which hinterlands of urban centres could be traced and defined by archaeobotanical evidence from those centres (Geraghty 1996, 61–6). Tierney and Hannon (1997, 891–2) also raised this issue in their discussion of plant remains from the Waterford sites but were hampered, as in the Dublin study, by the absence of complementary evidence from contemporary rural sites. A recently completed Masters’ study by Abigail Brewer in the Department of Archaeology, University College Cork, however, has explored this theme further for Kilkenny and Limerick (Brewer 2001a; 2001b). Hinterland studies, if they are to reach their full potential require, by their nature, the integration of different data sources on the lines being developed by myself, Penny Johnston and other colleagues in the Novgorod project in Russia (Brisbane and Gaimster 2001; Monk and Johnston 2001). The study of archaeobotanical remains from the Later Medieval period would also benefit from exploration of documentary sources that make reference to the use and economic status of plants (McClatchie 2003). Such an integration of different data sources is essential. It is particularly relevant, as Wendy Smith (2001) has recently cogently argued, in a line of research that developed in archaeobotany nearly 20 years ago which focused on plant remains as an indicator of whether a site was primarily either producing or consuming agricultural produce (Hillman 1981; Jones 1985; see arguments by van der Veen 1992). This line of research has hardly developed within Ireland but holds a great deal of potential in all environmental studies for the Medieval period where data could be derived from a range sources.
In 1998, together with John Tierney and Martha Hannon, I published the results of an assessment of plant remains from a series of near contemporary Early Medieval ringfort sites in Munster (Monk et al. 1998). The exercise demonstrated some similar themes but also indicated diversity in the crop plants present from site to site. Many of these sites, however, were occupied over long periods with very little build-up of stratigraphy, creating problems with accuracy in temporal resolution. This problem could be somewhat resolved if a systematic programme of thorough sampling was undertaken at a number of raths in a similar manner to the work undertaken at Deerpark Farms, Co. Antrim, during the 1980s (differential preservation within the mound accepted). Some preliminary results, obtained from a selection of samples derived from the site and studied for insect and macro-plant remains, were published in 1994 (Kenward and Allison 1994, 89–107). Despite the lack of temporal resolution in the Munster cases I do believe in the potential of regional studies of plant remains, either by period or through time, but that requires access to more data than is currently available. Such consistent systematic sampling strategies studies would, however, inevitably need to take into consideration variations in preservation and other taphonomic factors as well as contextual variability, most of which have only been properly considered in the last few years.
Ever since the formative ethnographical studies by Hillman (1981) in Turkey and then, slightly later, Jones (1983; 1984) in Greece, archaeobotanists throughout Europe and the Middle East have been discussing the plant remains they have studied in terms of the stage, or stages, in crop processing that the remains had reached before entering the archaeological record and the contexts where they were found. The crop processing models developed from ethnographic studies have served us well and, while applied more easily in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, they have also been successfully used in northern Europe (e.g. van der Veen 1992). From ethnographical research it is clear that there are similarities in crop processing practices between the two regions but, because of bioclimatic differences and consequent differential cropping regimes, significant variations from the Greek and Turkish models are evident in temperate Europe. Research on these variations has been undertaken in Scotland (Smith 1994; 1996) and similar studies need to be produced for Ireland using extant sources for traditional farming practices.
While crop-processing residues are occasionally found, they are for the most part uncommon. This is partly because few contexts contain undisturbed in situ remains and because most crops are more likely to become charred during the final stages of processing before domestic use. Having said this residues from, or associated with, corn-drying kilns have considerable potential to provide a ‘snap shot’ of crops either post-harvest pre-storage or post storage pre-milling, depending at what stage the remains became charred in the kiln (Monk 1987). More detailed inter-site comparisons also hold considerable potential in this area of study.
Following on from this there is a need for more inter-contextual comparative studies, both on the same sites but between different sites. This would be particularly useful for similar context types, such as house walls and post-holes, as well as identifiable corn drying kilns. Broad contemporaneity of context type would, of course, be a variable that would need to be established in order to gain the most from the results of such work. Different periods offer up different context complexes and it is likely that the remains from them would vary. An understanding of the taphonomic processes affecting the infilling of features would be crucial before meaningful comparisons could be made of their content (Monk 1991b, 107–8; Monk in progress).
Integrated research projects are becoming increasingly common in archaeology, as a survey of many journals will show, for example, Antiquity and Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society. In many cases these studies involve environmental and other scholars from archaeological science, for example, the archaeological and palaeoenvironmental investigations of the Upper Allen Valley in Dorset (French et al. 2003). An important study in the Irish context published recently is the Irish Wetland Unit’s publication of the excavation of the Mountdillon Bogs, Co. Longford (Raftery 1996). These projects had an important interdisciplinary palaeoenvironmental focus. It is very encouraging to note the existence of several similar projects in the final stages of production here in Ireland, where archaeobotanical studies will be even more to the fore than in either of these examples.
Drawing together diverse results from different areas of scholarship can be very rewarding even though it may bring forth contrasting and sometimes divergent results that serve to challenge the interpretative basis of our research. I have had some experience of this via the Novgorod project and most recently the study of Early Medieval oatcake fragments recovered from the excavations at Lisleagh, Co. Cork. The study has involved histological and chemical analysis of the remains which have then been interpreted by reference to the documentary and ethnographic sources for the manufacture and consumption of oatcakes in conjunction with the archaeological and archaeobotanical context of the remains (McLaren et al. 2004). The potential value of histological and chemical studies combined with archaeobotanical research has been realised for some time (e.g. Hillman et al. 1993). The possibilities to be gained from such research, in conjunction with standard morphological studies of plant remains, have a great deal of potential within the Irish context.
The attention of archaeobotanists has been biased towards the purely economic, utilitarian, interpretation of the plant remains they study. Even where macro-remains of so-called ‘wild’ flora are discovered all of us who work in the field tend to prioritise the possible functional economic use of those plants in our interpretations over other uses that may relate to the ways people viewed plants in the past or ritual practices which may have involved them. People in the past, as in the present, had perceived as well as real needs that required fulfilment from environmental resources in their locality, including plants. Although it may not be possible to understand the choice of certain plants for so called ritual practice, a basis for interpretation that has not been fully explored within Ireland is recent folk traditions.
While the development of Christianity has probably caused the demise of many such traditions, others have persisted or were adopted by the Church. We in Ireland are fortunate to have a wealth of folklore upon which to draw and research is needed to help inform us of the interpretative possibilities in this arena. An example of how important folklore sources can be is Tony Lucas’ (1960) acclaimed study of furze/gorse (Ulex eurpaeus). Fairbairn (2000, 115, 120–1), has recently highlighted the possible non-utilitarian symbolic ideological significance of cereals amongst the first farmers in a paper on the evidence for Neolithic crops in Britain. Similarly, the status value of past crop plants requires exploration as indicated in the early documentary sources (see discussion, for example, of the high status value of wheat relative to other cereals in the Early Irish Medieval sources–Monk 1991a, 318–20; Kelly 1997, Sexton 1993; 1998). Due to the usual random and accidental nature of both preservation of crop plant remains and deposition in the contexts from which they are excavated we can seldom aspire to this level of interpretation. It is, nevertheless, important to appreciate the likely diversity of the place of plants in past human societies even where examples of epigraphic or documentary evidence to make a case for such an interpretation are lacking.
It was noted above that hinterland studies around Medieval sites would be best served by an approach involving the integration of evidence from different data sources, including all areas of environmental archaeological research and particularly plant remains. This approach is applicable for most landscape/settlement projects and has been increasingly common practice elsewhere (Kemp et al. 1994; Mathews et al. 1994). An important opportunity has developed in this respect in the Discovery Programme’s Lake Settlement project for which, Ingelise Stuijs, an environmental archaeologist has recently been appointed. Similar research projects would do well to follow suit and indeed our government services should consider appointing such individuals to facilitate environmental archaeological requirements of excavation licenses, thereby, ensuring that it is part of the project design for all future work.
This essay has outlined the beginnings and early developments of environmental archaeology within Ireland from a personal perspective. Needless to say, there is a particular focus on archaeobotanical studies, particularly in the second part of the paper. I have followed this line in order to assess where I see openings for the development of the subject but we can only explore these successfully if these avenues of research are facilitated by the profession as a whole and the statutory bodies in particular.
It has been noted that environmental archaeology, as opposed to palaeoecological studies, was slow to develop in Ireland, the former facilitated by the wealth of contexts with exceptional preservation of sequences of palaeoenvironmental material. It has been shown that there have been important developments in what would now be broadly called environmental archaeology. For the most part these developments were undertaken by individual researchers and owe a great deal to outside influences, many of which originally lay within the realm of palaeoecological studies. I have argued that the traditional focus of the archaeological profession, reinforced by the statutory bodies, on descriptive archaeology and culture history has been partly responsible for the slow adoption of environmental archaeology in Ireland. In addition, the arts educated backgrounds of most of our colleagues has meant that the post-processual paradigm has been more readily adopted by them in recent years than its processual predecessor. This has been unfortunate because the importance of the contribution of the natural sciences to archaeological questions was more easily realised within the framework of processual thinking than it has been since.
However, as indeed was the case in Britain and on the continent in the 1970s, an upsurge in environmental archaeology has occurred at times when there has been a rise in rescue excavation leading to an increase in the recovery of environmental remains. This happened in Ireland during the early 1980s and has again been the case over the last ten years. The point was made that it is important to capitalise on these occasions and for environmental archaeologists to highlight the essential contribution that the sub-discipline can make to archaeology as a whole. Such a realisation did occur in the 1980s and a small group of like-minded people formed a loose discussion group under the umbrella ‘Man and Environment Work Group’. Several informal seminars were held by this group before the impetus behind it ran its course. Nevertheless, it did open up lines of communication between people. By comparison with the 1980s we have a distinct advantage at this time because we are now reaching a ‘critical mass’ of environmental archaeologists and archaeologists trained to appreciate the importance of this aspect of the discipline. As such, the future is much brighter than it has been to date. The mere fact that it has been possible to get other scholars working within Ireland to contribute to this volume is a testament of this.
It is necessary, however, to evaluate the evidence we have obtained to date and there is still a problem with accessibility to new data that we need to address with some urgency in order to emphasise the value of existing studies. It is important to assess this new work and isolate emerging trends and issues; in the second part of this contribution I have made an attempt to do this for archaeobotany.
I would like to thank Penny Johnston, Eileen Reilly and Judith Monk who read over and commented on earlier drafts of this text. My present and past students have been a source of inspiration to me. I would particularly like to acknowledge those who are now my colleagues, not least those whose published and unpublished research I have referenced here–Abigail Brewer, Martha Hannon, Penny Johnston, Meriel McClatchie, Finbar McCormick, Regina Sexton and John Tierney. Helen Smith also allowed me to reference her unpublished Ph.D. In addition I would like to thank Geraldine Murphy for her typing of the penultimate draft and the editors for their patience and advice. Two anonymous referees also offered editorial advice and made encouraging suggestions. However, responsibility for the content of this paper and the views expressed within rest with me.
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