Marion Dowd - The Archaeology of Darkness

Published in the United Kingdom in 2016 by
OXBOW BOOKS
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and in the United States by
OXBOW BOOKS
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Oxbow Books and the individual contributors 2016

Paperback Edition: ISBN 978-1-78570-191-7
Digital Edition: ISBN 978-1-78570-192-4(epub)
Digital Edition: ISBN 978-1-78570-193-1(kindle)
Digital Edition: ISBN 978-1-78570-194-8(pdf)

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Dowd, Marion. | Hensey, Robert.

Title: The archaeology of darkness / edited by Marion Dowd and Robert Hensey.

Description: Oxford : Oxbow Books, 2016. | Papers from Into the earth : the archaeology of darkness, a conference held at the Institute of Technology Sligo, in the north-west of Ireland, October 27, 2012. | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015049027 (print) | LCCN 2016006939 (ebook) | ISBN 9781785701917 (paperback) | ISBN 9781785701924 (digital) | ISBN 9781785701924 (epub) | ISBN 9781785701931 (mobi) | ISBN 9781785701948 (pdf)

Subjects: LCSH: Social archaeology--Congresses. | Ethnoarchaeology--Congresses. | Landscape archaeology--Congresses. | Darkness--Social aspects--History--Congresses. | Night--Social aspects--History--Congresses. | Caves--Social aspects--History--Congresses. | Passage Graves culture--Congresses. | Human ecology--History--Congresses.

Classification: LCC CC72.4 .A7346 2016 (print) | LCC CC72.4 (ebook) | DDC 304.209--dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015049027

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Front cover: Fourknocks passage tomb chamber, Ken Williams.

Contents

List of figures

List of plates

List of tables

Background and acknowledgements

Marion Dowd and Robert Hensey

This book began with a conference entitled Into the Earth: the Archaeology of Darkness. The event took place just before Halloween 2012, at the Institute of Technology Sligo, in north-west Ireland. The success of the present volume is in no small part due to the contributors to that conference; we thank them all for their insights and enthusiasm for the subject. We would like to sincerely thank those speakers who are not represented in this volume: Colmn Clabaigh, Muiris OSullivan, Jack Santino, Ken Williams and Brian Keenan for their involvement.

Brian Keenans powerful and moving account of his physical and mental deterioration, coping mechanisms and recovery from the four and a half years he was held hostage by Islamic Jihad in Beirut between 1986 and 1990, was for many a highlight of the conference. The impact his talk had on the other speakers is clear from several chapters in this book. Brians meditation and reflections on darkness through his various publications (An evil cradling; Turlough; Four quarters of light) was an important influence on us from the conception of the conference through to the production of The archaeology of darkness.

Darkness is a fundamental feature of life, which we realize was not just an important and undertheorized feature of the monuments and sites we studied, megalithic tombs and caves, but a central aspect of human experience in the past and present (see ) highlights a topic that is common for many of the authors: the sensory experience of physically and spiritually navigating dark underground spaces.

The living and working conditions of some people past and present also involved intense interaction with darkness, such as the Bronze Age and post-medieval miners who exploited the Great Orme copper sources in Wales as explored by Sian James (), the challenge in understanding how darkness was perceived in other societies is to be reflexive and aware that our interpretations are conditioned by and grounded in our own culture and experience.

The high quality of these chapters, the punctuality of the contributors in meeting deadlines, and their interest in the subject have made our work as editors pleasant and enjoyable. For help in the organization of the conference we would like to thank: Jeremy Bird, Rory Connolly, Ciarn Davis, Billy Fitzgerald, Phyl Foley, Alan Healy, Pdraig Meehan, Sam Moore, Sinead Neary, Paul Rooney and Gordon Ryan. Special thanks are due to I.T. Sligo for a grant towards the conference costs, and to the School of Geography and Archaeology NUI Galway and the Sligo Field Club who provided financial support for this publication. We are grateful to the team at Oxbow Books for their work. We would like to acknowledge all those who gave permission to include their images. For the illustration from the Book of Ballymote we thank Bernadette Cunningham and the Royal Irish Academy, and Anne Marie OBrien and the Irish Script on Screen (. We are indebted to Ken Williams and Robert Mulraney for their wonderful photographs which grace the front and back covers respectively.

This book and the opportunity it has given us to delve into the subject of darkness has been extremely rewarding. Though we have not completely gone over to the dark side (!) we are quite sure our respective archaeological work and thinking will never again be quite the same.

January 2016

Marion Dowd
Robert Hensey

Contributors

Gillian Allmond is a buildings archaeologist based at Queens University Belfast. Having worked for several years on the Northern Ireland Environment Agencys survey of listed buildings, she is currently completing a doctoral study of colony asylums in Scotland, Ireland and Germany.

Richard Bradley taught prehistoric archaeology at the University of Reading between 1971 and 2013, and is Emeritus Professor of Archaeology there. He has a special interest in ancient landscapes and monumental architecture in Europe. In 2007 he published The prehistory of Britain and Ireland (Cambridge University Press).

John Carey is Professor of Early and Medieval Irish at University College Cork. The collection The end and beyond: medieval Irish eschatology, edited by him together with Emma Nic Crthaigh and Caitrona Dochartaigh, was published in 2014.

Gabriel Cooney is Professor of Celtic Archaeology at University College Dublin. His research interests focus on Irish prehistory, particularly the Neolithic. He is co-director of the Irish Stone Axe Project, and is currently involved in researching prehistoric quarrying on Shetland.