Excavations at Tlachtga

Delighted to announce that we are almost at publication stage! We are very grateful for all of your assistance and interest over the years. Hopefully we will have a launch event in Athboy sometime soon

Some later things - a militia button (possibly Longford Militia - a button also with Prince of Wales' Feathers was recovered at Trim a few years back) and a broken 'slate pencil'

A few photos: the copper alloy ringpin (without ring) and ingot mould, again used to cast copper alloy ingots - both recovered from Trench 7.

After the kiln all was quiet again until perhaps 400 AD. At this time there was a small burning episode on the hill - perhaps the start of clearance to allow the building of Tlachtga itself. First to be built was the southern enclosure, most likely early in the C5th, An infant was buried in the base of this. Very soon after the main enclosure you see today was built - probably before 450 AD - around the coming of Christianity to Ireland. This did not yet have its large mound in the middle but instead enclosed an open space. What happened for the next few hundred years is unclear, but the site does not seem to have seen any intense activity. This changed in the mid-C10th when metalworking came to Tlachtgta in the form of iron, copper alloy and silver working. A significant industrial area was set up to the east of the monument, including a smithy, while non-ferrous metalworking took place in the monument ditches. These people lived mostly on oats and barley, along with livestock and while they valued oak for ironworking were otherwise very unselective about their fuel use. The ditches were recut at this time after several hundred years of silting up. Most likely in the early C11th the central mound was constructed. A layer of turf was brought in as a base then this was covered by a dump of clay with two phases of revetment, one of limestone the second of shale. More large stones were placed on top, probably as a path of sorts. After this we know that sometime in the C12th a wooden structure was built and burned to the ground - perhaps an early Anglo-Norman fortification.

After a long silence, some updates for you at last!

Thanks to the Royal Irish Academy we received a grant to help push forward the final reporting of our 2016 season. There have been some delays with this - as you probably noticed. People leaving the profession, pandemics that sort of thing. But we are, at last nearly done, and just in time for Samhain.

So, where are we at? After three seasons of excavation there are still some gaps but a lot of the story of Tlachtga is becoming clearer. It starts, probably somewhere in the Neolithic, around 3500 BC. We have very little from this period on the hill but a few fragments that suggest a local Neolithic presence. The first significant construction on the Hill is in the Bronze Age - c. 1100 BC. At this time a massive trivallate monument is built - 200 m across with an enormous internal rock cut ditch and two others ditches becoming smaller as we move outwards. What happened at this site we don't know. Livestock were eaten, some people died and ended up in the ditches, there are hints of industrial processes and high status, but they are only hints. This monument continued through until about 400 BC when it was filled in, most likely deliberately. We have no indications what happened for the next couple of hundred years until in about 100 BC a corn drying kiln is placed just outside the outer ditch of the enclosure...

I'll be presenting on Tlachtga at the European Association of Archaeologists conference this afternoon - wish me luck!

Lovely memory of this day three years ago when myself (Cathy!) and Neil Jackman were lucky enough to be flown over Tlachtga, a beautiful day then as it is today, would be nice up on the hill this morning!

Dear all. Many thanks for all your enthusiasm. Unfortunately, owing to circumstances beyond our control we will not be digging again this year. There is still plenty to do from 2016 - lots of post-excavation work and planning for a final publication. I am sorry to have raised your expectations - I will keep you posted on our post-ex over the coming months.

Apologies for the very long absence. Just to let all our followers know that we are hoping for a fourth and (for now) final season in 2017, but are awaiting permissions. I will keep you posted

A brief and hopefully interesting update for you regarding our latest round of radiocarbon dates which rather turn my last long statement about the development of the site on its head! We received three dates this week, one from the remaining section of the Southern Enclosure in Trench 5, one from the recut of the inner ditch in Trench 4 and the third from beneath the mound in Trench 6 from this year's excavations. The Southern Enclosure date returned quite close to where we might expect, although somewhat later than the previous date from this phase - 685-940 cal AD, with the balance of probability at the earlier part of this range. The recut of the inner ditch at Trench 5 was Bronze Age - within a couple of hundred years of the initial construction phase (833-994 cal BC). What was most unexpected though was the date from C818, beneath the main mound in Trench 6. This has returned as early medieval - 884-1029 cal AD. While a second date will confirm this it would seem to imply that the *enclosure* of Tlachtga was constructed perhaps up to 500 years earlier than the central mound, and that the site started life as a much more conventional trivallate ringfort which was monumentalised in this unusual manner. Construction of platform raths at this time is not unusual - a good parallel is the site excavated by Chris Lynn at Big Glebe, Co. Derry in the 1970s, where a large mound was constructed in a single episode at around the same time period. It certainly puts a different angle on interpreting the site however...

Excellent piece on metal detecting in Ireland, which is entirely illegal without a license (even for archaeologists). Sites like Tlachtga have been targeted by detectorists over many years. This does not add to archaeological knowledge in anything but the most basic terms, and is destroying, not saving our heritage.

Irish Metal Detectorists Want to ‘Rescue’ Ireland’s Buried Heritage. By Digging It Up Themselves. In recent days several (bemused) archaeologists have received an unsolicited email advertising an event entitled: ‘Rescuing Irelands Buried Heritage before it vanishes forever’ – …

Some finds from the last couple of years!