Jackie McDowell: On dry ground. An early medieval settlement at Deer Park Farms, Co. Antrim | Drumclay Conference 2014 | Review
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As part of the public outreach
campaign surrounding the excavation of the crannog at Drumclay, Co. Fermanagh,
the NIEA organised a one-day conference on the site. This followed on from the
two very successful open days where the public were allowed to visit while the excavation was ongoing and see the work in progress, get up close to
some of the astounding artefacts, and hear of the progress directly from those
on the site [here].
The point of the conference was to present the findings of the excavation and
its research context to a broad, non-specialist audience; chiefly the local
population of Enniskillen and Fermanagh.
The first session was
chaired by Dr John O’Keeffe, Principal Inspector, who welcomed the attendees
and introduced the format that the day was going to take. After the obligatory
requests to turn off mobile phones and the directions to the emergency exits,
O’Keeffe noted that Fermanagh has a tradition of antiquarian interest in
crannogs, stretching back into the 19th century. He noted that although it had
been over a year since the conclusion of the excavation, work had been
progressing behind the scenes on the preparation of a preliminary Data
Structure Report, along with the planning for the extensive programme of
post-excavation research. At this point, O’Keeffe introduced Jackie McDowell,
the first speaker of the day. McDowell is an Inspector of Historic Monuments
with the Department of the Environment, and was co-author (with the wonderful
C. J. Lynn) of the Deer
Park Farms excavation monograph, and her topic was On dry ground. An early medieval settlement at Deer Park Farms, Co.
Antrim. She began by nothing that the excavation of the iconic Deer Park
Farms began 30 years previously, in September 1984, and how it was very much a
classic site for its generation of archaeologists, in the same way that
Drumclay is emerging for the current generation. Speaking generally of Early
Christian settlement, McDowell provided a little context by explaining that
crannogs and raths are just two of several forms of contemporary settlement
that include cashels, unenclosed settlements, and (from more recent
excavations) ‘settlement cemeteries.’ Raths (or Ringforts) are circular
enclosures defined by a bank and ditch and there are something in the region of
45,000 probable sites on the island of Ireland, of which some 700 are known
from county Fermanagh. Univallate (single-banked) raths are, on average, 20-40m
in diameter and would have enclosed a group of houses and outbuildings.
Fermanagh also has a number of bivallate (two-banked) raths, along with
‘Platform’ or ‘Raised Raths’. This latter type could have been constructed
through one of a number of means, including scarping a suitable landform,
allowing the gradual build-up of a site over time, or even as a single, planned
event. It remains a matter of debate as to why people wished to live on an
elevated site and what that means. This latter point was one of the questions
that the excavators wanted to address when they came to publish the Deer Park
Farms book.
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| Structure Zeta and western side of Structure X from south. Note the collapsed section of wall on the west of Structure Zeta and the southern bedding area (C1291) within Structure X. Source Deer Park Farms book, via EMAP blog. |
Although the rath phase of Deer Park Farms began in the seventh century, earlier evidence was recovered in the form of a number of Bronze Age pits. Within the corpus of the excavated artefacts there were a number of struck flints and Neolithic polished stone axe heads. McDowell notes that, in the same way that modern people find and collect items from the landscape, so too the people of this site picked up and retained interesting items they found from earlier times. Underneath the rath was a circular ring-ditch (c. 27m in diameter) with an east-facing entrance. No bank survived associated with this feature and none of the internal features could be definitely linked to this phase of activity. The bank of the succeeding rath was unusual in that it possessed a neat stone revetment. McDowell noted that the fact that the rath entrance faced east, along a break in slope, appears to have contributed to some of the problems that the occupants experienced during the lifetime of the site. Essentially, the on-site drainage was poor, which contributed markedly to the preservation of so much material. However, during the lifetime of the site it would also have created issues for people attempting to live here.
Throughout the duration of the settlement at the site there appears to have been a relatively uniform plan of occupation
and layout of houses within it. Most usually, there was a large central house
(sometimes of a figure-of-eight shape) with other houses on the northern and
southern peripheries, all joined by interconnecting pathways. During the lifetime of the rath the occupants appeared to have focused much attention on
the entrance. This came to a head during the final phase when they created a
long, in-turned entrance way of impressive proportions. McDowell noted that
when the team first encountered the entrance way, it appeared to point towards
a ‘cone’ of gravel and soil at the centre of the site. Early speculation by the
crew included visions of uncovering tombs or other spectacular discoveries.
Instead, they excavated the remains of a series of well-preserved domestic
structures that may have lacked some of the romance and mystery of gold-packed
tombs, but were nonetheless of vast importance and interest. The excavations
showed that the elaborate in-turned entrance way led directly to the central
house. The layout of these elements was such that no one entering the rath
could access the rest of the site without first coming to the door of the
central house. This illustrates the way in which the occupants wanted visitors
to approach and experience the site – no one could come in and wander about
without making yourself known to the owners.
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| External view from the east along the partially excavated entrnceway (C1259). The gravel mound (C1258) that filled structure X after it was abandoned can be seen in the background. Source Deer Park Farms book, via EMAP blog. |
Before the end of the
eighth century the inhabitants were being forced to continually remake and
elevate their paths because of the wetness and waterlogging. They took a
particularly drastic option and decide to heighten the entire mound by the
addition of up to 3m of gravel and stone. In doing so, they filled in the
elaborate entrance way and covered over the houses. The new mound was faced
with large stones and boulders, and was obviously a significant expenditure in
time and labour in itself, on top of all that invested in the creation of the
raised mound. The final acts of settlement on the site included the
construction of two souterrains, or artificial caves. Interestingly, these were
constructed using two different methods. One was cut into earlier layers of
habitation material, while the other was constructed on the surface of the
mound and piling material around it and buried as part of the heightening of
the mound. With the creation of this new, level surface they began again to
build houses. The pattern was similar to that used during the rath period with
a single, large, centrally placed house (some of which were figure-of-eight in
plan) with smaller examples in other parts of the interior. Some 40 houses of
various kinds were identified at Deer Park Farms, over some twelve distinct
phases of occupation. In the lower, waterlogged portions of the site their
wicker and wooden elements were preserved, while in the upper portions of the
site they were identifiable only as collections of stake-holes in the gravel.
McDowell showed an illustration of a pair of large pits representing the former
positions of the door jambs that were dug out and recycled elsewhere on site.
In the lowest portions, the best preserved houses retained their original
wicker walls, wooden doorposts, and internal fittings. The houses were, for the
most part, circular in plan with only two examples of rectangular houses being
recovered. Neither of the rectangular structures appear to have been used as
domestic buildings. To keep the houses warn and draft-proof they employed a
double-wall technique, where the cavity between the inner and outer layers was
packed with moss, heather, and straw etc.
In this earliest phase of the site, the walls of some houses survived to up to
3m in height where it had collapsed onto the ground surface. The primary wood
used for the walls was hazel, which indicated that the occupants must have
coppiced and managed large areas of woodland to ensure a reliable supply for
housing, fencing, basketry etc.
McDowell estimates that the houses had an average lifespan of between 15 and 20
years. Close study of the walls has shown that the weaving technique was not
the simple ‘in and out’ technique that may be imagined, but was more akin to
basketry, but on a house-size scale. The resulting walls were much stronger and
sturdier than the archaeologists would have imagined beforehand. Turning to the
question of how the houses were roofed, McDowell notes that analysis of the environmental
remains identified the larvae of click beetles which are
sometimes associated with turves. Thus, they may have had some form of sod
roofs on their buildings. However, large bundles of heather and associated
insects were discovered on the site, so this appears to have been another roofing option. While
hazel was commonly used for the walls, oak was the preferred material for the
door jambs. McDowell showed an image of a complete pair of jambs and accompanying
lintel from the site which had been buried when the site was developed from a
rath to a raised rath. While partially damaged by the dump of later material,
the jambs clearly showed long grooves which would have fitted around the ends
of the hazel walls. Radiocarbon dating shows that the site was occupied from
the seventh through to the tenth centuries. The door jambs shown by McDowell
were dated by dendrochronology to 648 to 649 AD, making them approximately a
century earlier than the house into which they were inserted. It appears that
valuable resources, such as the dressed oak jambs, would have been salvaged
from decaying buildings and recycled into later structures while they remained
viable.
Using the data
collected at Deer Park Farms, a reconstruction of one of these forms of houses
was attempted at the Navan Centre, Navan Fort, Co. Armagh. That reconstruction
went with a conical roof shape that was found to require additional support
from internal posts. However the Deer Park Farms houses did not appear to
possess or require additional support, suggesting that a different roof shape
was employed. McDowell noted that The UCD
Experimental Archaeology programme were, at that time, beginning on a new
reconstruction of a Deer Park Farms-style house that would try to adhere more
closely to the excavated evidence and use a more domed roof. McDowell noted
that although it would have met with opposition from modern Health & Safety
busybodies (my term, not hers), the linteled doorway at Deer Park Farms would
have been just over one metre in height. Indeed, the reconstructed example at
Navan Fort had to be raised significantly to allow tourist traffic. She noted
that a number of the houses retained evidence of a small clay bank running
round the bottom of the wall to act as a draft-excluder. This feature was
visible up against in situ walls on
the lower, waterlogged houses and on the upper, ‘dried out’ houses where only
stake-holes survived. Having painted a vivid picture of these double-walled,
low-doored, conical roofed houses, McDowell next attempted to examine what had
been going on inside them. Inside the houses there were bedding areas defined
by wattle surrounds. These were formed with larger branches at the base and
smaller, finer branches over these. Presumably this was augmented with moss,
fleece or other soft materials and covered with blankets. She showed images of
one bedding area that was partially defined by a wooden plank that had a number
of holes in it, to carry a partition or screen to provide some degree of
privacy. The bedding area contained evidence of parasites along with a number
of small finds. One bedding area produced a number of beads, while another
contained a rather lovely brooch pin.
There was a substantial
number of artefacts recovered from Deer Park Farms, the majority of which show
parallels with other sites in Ireland and western Britain – some may even be
paralleled with the assemblage from Drumclay. For example, the wooden shoe last
from Drumclay is remarkably similar to one recovered from Deer Park Farms. The
latter example was recovered from a wooden trough on the floor of a house where
the wall had collapsed and buried it. The same trough also contained a number
of leather offcuts, presumably the detritus associated with cobbling. Surviving iron
objects included rush-light holders to relieve the gloom of the interiors. Many
of the iron objects were retrieved from burnt layers on the site. While none of
the lower, waterlogged layers (rath phase) showed evidence for burning, there
were three distinct phases in the upper mound (raised rath) where buildings had
been destroyed by fire. However, there is no evidence as to the origins of
these fires, be it accidental or the result of raiding/warfare. As these events
appear to have been unplanned, there was no time to vacate the houses in an
orderly manner, with the occupants taking all their belongings with them. Thus,
the houses associated with these phases of burning are particularly rich in
artefacts. For example, McDowell notes the recovery of a complete souterrain
ware pot discovered on one of the banks of the houses. The house had been
rapidly covered over and the site rebuilt on for another house.
The inhabitants of the
Deer Park Farms site operated a mixed farming economy and this is reflected in
the recovered tools. Evidence for woodland management comes in the form of a
variety of axes and bill-hooks, while a number of plough socks indicate that
some tillage was also undertaken. The animal bones from the site indicate that
(similar to other sites of the period) cattle dominated the assemblage, but
sheep and goats were also present, along with some evidence for horses. The
occupants would have used every aspect of these animals in their economy from
consumption of meat, milk, fleece and hides, as well as creating items from
their bones. These latter artefacts include a variety of bone combs. The iron
shears recovered from the site could have been used for sheep shearing as well
as for personal grooming. A very rare example of human hair from the site was
neatly cut at both ends. Although there were few remains of cultivated plants
recovered during the excavation, analysis of the pollen indicates that cereal
cultivation was ongoing in the vicinity. The inhabitants also collected and
gathered wild plants, including heather, bracken, mosses, hazelnuts,
blackberries, raspberries, rowan, and sloe. As noted previously, the direct
evidence of cereal cultivation in the form of actual grain many have been
lacking, but it is evidenced by the presence of a millwheel hub, indicating
that they had either had access to a mill or the site was the home of skilled
millwrights who created such intricate pieces. The broad range of objects that
appear to have been manufactured on the site is testament to the talents of the
inhabitants, who appear to have been able to turn their hands to pretty much
every skill necessary to ensure their survival. Apart from the glass beads and
lignite armlets, there is little direct evidence for items being traded into
the rath that could not have been sourced and created in the locality. While
they may have been largely self-sufficient, McDowell is quick to point out that
they were not unaware of the broader world beyond their glen. As evidence of
this she shows a small sharpening stone, decorated with an animal head and a
contraction for the word ‘Domini’, or ‘[The] Lord’. Thus, while they may have
lived in small, damp, wooden houses with small doors and lice in the beds they
were still connected to the broader religious and social society – as she say’s
‘It wasn’t all doom and gloom – the finer things in life were also there’.
In closing, McDowell
notes that while Deer Park Farms was excavated 30 years ago and was regarded as
an exceptional site, it is still an important lynchpin in our understanding of
this period as much of the work on the Drumclay site builds on and develops on
the analysis of these discoveries. Also, many of the speakers at this
conference were heavily influenced in the early parts of their careers by the
Deer Park Farms excavation and her expectation is that Drumclay will now act as
a similar catalyst for the next generation of researchers.
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