Back on the Boyne!
Brú na Bóinne Dig Day 14 July 2023 - Drogheda
Today I spent my first day on an archaeological dig, as a volunteer with Dig Ventures. Last year when I visited the neolithic sites at Brú na Bóinne open to the public I never guessed that I would be back a year later to contribute to humanity's archaeological knowledge of this important place. The big attractions for tourists are the passage tombs at Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth, but we now know there are nearly fifty of these structures in the area. 25% of the world's neolithic art has been unearthed here, and most of the tombs haven't been excavated yet! Needless to say, I'm excited about the week ahead.
We're digging three trenches on a hill above Donore on the south side of the Boyne. I am digging in trench three, which we are hoping will provide proof of a causewayed enclosure on the hill and some carbon-datable material or pottery to date the site. The other trenches are exploring the structure around a standing stone and potential postholes on an awenue of some sort. We have all this information about where to dig based on the extensive geophysical surveys of the valley. Professor Steven Davis of UCD has chosen the locations for us. I'm here for grunt work. The sod was removed over the weekend before I got here. There are a dozen of us working on trench three. Today we got our hands dirty with pickaxes and shovels clearing the topsoil above the archaeological layer. It's a task that will stretch through at least tomorrow. We're sieving a third of the soil as well to see that we get a good sample of what's there. An hour into pickaxing away I made my first archaeological find: a piece of flint worked into a tool. Between 5000 and 6000 years ago another human carried this stone from the coastal are in the north were flint is found and flaked off pieces with a stone to sharpen it. And today it was in my hand as I pulled it out of the ground!
The team is mostly composed of older retired people, but there are a couple recent college grads. One of them, Dan, also studied high energy physics, but became dissillusioned just like I once did and is looking for something else rather than go on to a PhD working at CERN. Abby, on the other hand, studied archaeology. One of the older guys, Mick, who's a local, offered to ferry me back and forth to the site from Drogheda where I'm staying. It's incredible the commonalities of interest - in the car tonight we discussed archaeological sites we've been too and our experiences on the Camino. It'll be nice not to have to walk to the dig when the rain sets in later this week. And I'm beat after a day working in the hot sun. My back started bothering me halfway through the day, so I swtiched to sieving instead of the pickaxe. Need to keep doing my yoga and situps! At least I found a Korean place for a dinner of bulgogi, kimchi and soju. Just like mom used to make! I ordered and ate with such gusto that the little old Korean lady running the place with a man who I'm guessing is her son asked if I was Korean. I had to laugh. Not a bad way to spend the 4th of July!
You can follow along with our dig here.
