Times Past: Give an archaeologist a bone…

Jonathan Smyth's latest Times Past column has an archaeological touch to it...

Remember, the jolly milk advert on telly encouraging us to drink lots of the white stuff with its tuneful ditty, ‘Them bones, them bones need calcium!’ Perhaps, bones are an odd thing to be discussing in the column, and it’s not yet Halloween. That said, bones are an archaeologist’s dream. They can be quite fascinating on the where and how they were buried and offer new clues to the cultural customs that were common to our ancient forebears. The following account is a snapshot or at most, a partial skeleton history of the county, if you will excuse the pun.

Bawnboy

In 1957, the dig of a burial mound at Bawnboy concluded over a July weekend on the lands of James McGoldrick, Gortnacargy. The excavation by the Antiquities Division of the National Museum revealed the interment of seven skeletons. The skeletons lay in rough graves described as pits beneath the low cairn-mound and were believed to have gone back to the bronze or early iron age. One of the remains excavated belonged to a young child and was buried alongside pottery. More pieces of broken pottery were found, and it was believed that they were intentionally broken as part of some ancient burial ritual. Flint pieces were found too.

The excavators found no giant skeletons as they hoped but only those of low statured people. The work attracted great local attention and teachers from surrounding schools and the inhabitants of the Bawnboy district landed to see what was going on. Everything found was then transported to the National Museum, Dublin. A future lecture by the archaeologist who directed the excavation, Brendán O’Riordan, was expected to take place at the earliest opportunity of his returning to Bawnboy to talk about his experience.

Mountnugent

Bogs generally known for their conservation properties and in particular for the preservation of bodies and butter buried in ancient times. Therefore, the idea of finding a skeleton in a bog sounds like an unlikely matter. After all, there have been plenty of recorded discoveries of bog bodies, for example Tollund man. In Cavan however, there have been numerous discoveries of fleshless skeletons, with their bone structure intact, for example, many years ago, a giant skeleton was uncovered in a bog in Knockbride. Such fleshless discoveries appear to go very much against the grain when we take into consideration the protective nature attributed to bog soil.

At a meeting of the Oldcastle guardians in June 1917 Mr Brady excitedly informed the board that the police had let him know about a skeleton that was dug out from under 10 feet of turf at Mountnugent with not a mark to show of it ever ‘being disturbed.’ A man named Peter Cullen had discovered the bones while cutting turf. I imagine that such a discovery must have been quite alarming for the unfortunate turf cutter. The newspaper marvelled that: ‘There was no trace of flesh or clothes, but some red hair and a leather belt of military pattern.’ The skeleton was not given any further analysis whatsoever but was tasked to the relieving officer by order of the guardians to have it buried.

Cornamuckla

On another occasion in Gowna, hardworking turf cutters on Cornamuckla bog were in for a treat when they uncovered the skeleton of an animal said to have been, an old Irish boar. But there was nothing boring about this boar. A description of the creature in the newspaper said that it measured four feet, its legs were missing, while the animal’s brown hair remained and was around three inches in length. Its teeth and fangs were removed for examination and measured at between three and three and a half inches in length. The remains of the creature were found ‘embedded in solid turf at a depth of 10 feet. Cornamuckla when translated into English means the hill of the pigs and in ancient times the area was said to be covered under the shade of a forest in which such wild pigs roamed. Afterwards, the parts of the creature were placed in the care of Mr D. O’Neill who lived in the townland.

Elks

In June 1984, the skull and antlers of a 5,000 year old giant deer, otherwise known as an elk, were discovered at Latnadrona bog, Crosserlough, at a depth of eight feet below the bog. The find was made by Des Boylan and James Smith of Derrylahan during drainage work. Elks were a giant species which weighed between 800 to 1000 pounds and stood at a height of six feet, with huge antlers measuring up to 10 feet and more.

Some years ago, in his Anglo-Celt column, A.F. McEntee noted some of Cavan’s ‘unsolved mysteries of the past’, one of which was about an alluvial deposit in the large Annagelliffe Lake where the antlers and bones of an elk were found near the lake’s outlet.

These prehistoric remains were found in 1859 by a tenant of the Rev William Prior Moore, MA, the Royal School, Cavan. A group of workers were assigned by Moore to look for the rest of the elk, but they only found a vertebrate from its neck, the head, excluding the jaw, some bones and corresponding antler. The artefacts were all considered to be in a fairly good state of preservation.

In the early 19th century, at the old rectory, Killycramph, Cootehill the porch was once ‘adorned by the head and horns of an elk, measuring 12 feet from the top of one branch to that of the other.’ These elk horns were retrieved from a bog in the townland of Lislea, Cootehill.

Crossdoney

Not far from Scotch Island, along the shores of Lough Oughter, Gerard Leathem was busy digging turf on his bog at Drumury, Crossdoney in June 1963 when he came upon the skull and upper part of a human skeleton buried beneath the wetland. Startled, by the discovery he covered the skull with a sackcloth and alerted gardaí. It was supposed that the remains belonged to a young soldier who fought in the historic battle at Scotch Island who, being mortally wounded, died, and was interred along the lake shore. Plans were made to remove the skeleton and have it buried in consecrated ground.

Sometime, prior to this, stone axes and ancient canoes were found in the same area and it was decided that after they had the skeleton re-buried a search of the area would be carried out with the aim of locating further antiquities which might lead to a better understanding of the period in which the warrior lived.

Prehistoric burials tell us something about the people and the creatures that inhabited the world in far off mythical times. Indeed, many of the ancient tribes both Celtic and pre-Celtic, can trace their origins to the four corners of Europe, including the Mediterranean. There is much more work to be done in the field. As they say, give a dog a bone and he will bury it, but find an archaeologist an age-old femur and they will dig.

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