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This paper cheerfully accepts the challenge elloquently articulated by the existential poet Donald Rumsfeld. In order to justify the vast public expenditure on development-led archaeology projects, how do we purposely find the unkown unknowns when we don’t even know what they look like? But as well as the things we don’t know we’re looking for, what also of the nature and integrity of the things we do find (our known knowns), and of the things we expect to find (our known unknowns)? Focusing on Newrath, an alluvial and esturine site on the N25 Waterford bypass, this paper explains how a multi-disciplinary team of archaeologists attempt to find what they don’t know they don’t know before it vanishes forever.
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“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
Photo: James Eogan, NRA
Photo: James Eogan, NRA
Aerial view of Woodstown, Co. Waterford test trenches, facing NE.
Photo courtesy of James Eogan, NRA
Pollen and non-pollen palynomorphs
Plant macrofossils
Wood and charcoal
Diatoms and Foraminifera
Beetles
Diagram by Emma Tetlow
5000 BCMesolithicMesolithic
MesolithicMesolithic
5000 BCMesolithicMesolithic
3500 BCNeolithicNeolithic
Neolithic and Early Bronze AgeNeolithic and Early Bronze Age
NeolithicNeolithic 3500 BC
2500 BCEarly Bronze Early Bronze AgeAge
2500 BCEarly Bronze Early Bronze AgeAge
1500 BCMiddle Bronze AgeMiddle Bronze Age
Middle Bronze Age 1500 BCMiddle Bronze Age 1500 BC
1500 BCMiddle Bronze AgeMiddle Bronze Age
1 BCIron AgeIron Age
Iron Age and Medieval Iron Age and Medieval periodsperiods
1 BCIron AgeIron Age
AD 1500MedievalMedieval
AD 1500MedievalMedieval
Part Two
Knowledge, value and the Celtic tiger.
“ The success of any archaeological project must be judged primarily by the research questions/issues it sets out to answer and the knowledge it produces. With some exceptions, the current preoccupation of the development-led archaeology is largely with data/information collection andmanagement rather than the quest for knowledge. To address this situation, immediate priority must be given to the standardisation of data collection/recording and to its interpretation by directors and other archaeologists involved in excavation projects.”
UCD 2006. Archaeology 2020: Repositioning Irish Archaeology in the knowledge Economy. p35
“The lack of fully published final reports on archaeological excavations has become of increasing concern in recent years. This means that we are not getting the return we should be getting from the massive increase we have seen in development led excavations.”
Department of Environment, Heritage, and Local Government. 2007. Review of Archaeological Policy and Practice in Ireland: Identifying the Issues. 13.
