PhD Candidate: Martin Moucheron
Supervisor: Prof. Graeme Warren
Funding: Irish Research Council Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship
Abstract:
This project proposes to reassess three Mesolithic (c. 8,000 – 4,000 BC) shell midden sites
on the east coast of Ireland using archival, archaeological, and geoarchaeological methods.
The shell middens in Dalkey Island and Sutton, Co. Dublin, and Rockmarshall, Co. Louth are
reference sites for the Irish Mesolithic, yet they have remained unexplored for the past fifty
years despite the impact of both coastal erosion and growing urbanisation on the
archaeology of the Irish East Coast; therefore “A modern assessment of the remaining
archaeological potential of these sites would be an important contribution” (Warren and
Westley 2020, 79) to the Mesolithic archaeology of Ireland.
In particular, the development of landscape archaeology, and the increasing precision in data
analysis, have imposed change as a key element to understand time and space – the sites
in their landscape evolved throughout the Mesolithic, and were different to what they are
today. Together with the original excavations’ material and archives, the extraordinary
technological progress in data acquisition and analysis will be mobilised:
1. to assess what archaeological potential has been preserved on our three sites using a
combination of archaeological and geoarchaeological methods – lithic and microstratigraphic
analysis, geophysics, coring, 3D terrain modelling – selected in line with international best
practice;
2. to develop a methodological “toolbox”, i.e. a suite of techniques and a set of guidelines,
that would be adaptive and transferable to other archaeological contexts – a practical
contribution to the archaeology of Early Holocene landscapes.
Recent publications:
- Butler, M., Doughty, A., Lifton, N., Kelley, S., Moucheron, M., O’Brien, C., Mann, B,
Skelton, R. Warren, G. 2024 (in press), “Looking Up for prehistoric hunter-gatherer
archaeological sites in mountain landscapes in Europe: a case study from the Cairngorms,
Scotland”, Hunter-Gatherer Research.
- Lévêque, F., Marchand, G., Moucheron, M., Teira, L. & Arias, P. 2023, “Potential and
Limitations of Geomagnetic Prospecting for the Imaging of Prehistoric Sites in Coastal
Areas: a Case Study of the Port Neuf Site (Hoedic) / Potentiels et limites de la prospection
géomagnétique appliquée à l’imagerie de sites préhistoriques en zone côtière : le site de
Port Neuf (Hoedic)”, in G. Marchand, P. Stéphan & Y. Pailler, Investigate the Shore, Sound
Out the Past: Methods and Practices of Maritime Prehistory – Séance de la Société
Préhistorique Française no.19, Société Préhistorique Française, Paris, pp. 19-44.
- Moucheron, M. 2023, "Motorways of Prehistory? Boats, Rivers and Moving in Mesolithic
Ireland", Open archaeology, vol.9, no.1, pp. 292-310.
- Moucheron, M. & Warren, G. 2022, "The Mesolithic in the Proceedings of the Royal Irish
Academy: an overview", Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, Section C: Archaeology,
Celtic Studies, History, Linguistics and Literature, vol.122, no.1, pp. 1-18.