A (nearly) dry day at last, allowing the team to clear the “funnelled” entrance to the roundhouse, and explore the internal structures. Arguing from roundhouses elsewhere, the Lismore house would have had a low circular/oval drystone wall, possibly topped with...
Work will start on Saturday (21 May – 1 June) on what we hope will be the concluding investigation of the Early Church site at Clachan, establishing the age and significance of the two mysterious built structures in the low-lying rushy part of the glebe (prehistoric,...
The first few days of the dig will concentrate on the roundhouse at the west end of the trench, leaving the wetter end with the square structure for later in the week. With some shelter from the showers provided by Clare’s gazebo, the work was mainly clearing and...
Dr Ange Boyle is currently washing the skeletons from last year’s (2021) excavations. This is a time consuming process. It can take as much as a day to wash a complete skeleton. The bones then have to be laid out on trays and allowed to dry. Ange is selecting petrous...
Comann Eachdraidh Lios Mòr is CrowdFunding to raise funds for a final archaeological dig in the Clachan glebe. We aim to carry out an intensive week of archaeology to find out what the unexpected built structures under the peat really are: prehistoric? (we did...
The good news is that we have started to raise the funding needed for the analyses of the many finds from the September dig. The MacDougall Clan Society of America has generously provided a grant of £1500 specially for work on the bone samples. This will allow...
Under the rules of the medieval Catholic Church, there could be no burial in consecrated ground for stillborn or miscarried babies because they had not been baptised. The same was probably true for illegitimate children who died. How did the bereaved parents cope...
As part of the Archaeological dig, CELM organised two talks in the Museum Room of the Heritage on Friday 10 September 2021 at 7.30pm. These were open to all and, with careful seating and the use of face coverings, it was possible to accommodate up to 30 people....
A report of an earlier dig and what was found. Achinduin Castle in the south west of Lismore was built around 1300 by the MacDougalls, who were the dominant family in the West at that time. It is one of a chain of stone castles by which they controlled the coastline...
Dr Angela Boyle (seen here with Memory McDonald) has been hard at work cleaning the Lismore bones and making the first detailed examinations. Here is a preliminary report from her on skeleton 11 (a mature male in the age range 36-45, who must have had a very...
The Big Dig on Lismore Final Report. Day 18. 25 September 2021 The wet weather virtually ruled out further digging, although there was plenty of work baling out the trenches so that Clare could photograph and draw the exposed structures. Following the decision on...
Progress Report. Day 16. Tomorrow (Friday) we close up Trenches 10 and 12. In spite of the rain, the dig has been very successful, with 16 in situ burials excavated in 10 and samples collected for further analysis. Even the many fragments of disturbed human...