Dirt, Dwellings and Culture: Living Conditions in Early Medieval Dublin

By (author) Eileen Reilly

Book cover: Dirt, Dwellings and Culture: Living Conditions in Early Medieval Dublin

Extent: 154 pages

Publisher: Archaeopress Publishing

Subjects: Medieval Studies

Language: English

Paperback (Published)

(April 2024)

ISBN: 9781803276526

7.99 x 10.87 inches

Price: $48.00

In stock

This book explores the living conditions and environments as experienced by early medieval people in Ireland, touching upon a wide range of environmental, architectural, artefactual and historical datasets from significant archaeological excavations of settlement sites across Ireland and Northern Europe.


What would it have been like to walk down the streets of Viking Age Dublin a thousand years ago? What would you have seen, heard and smelled? How would this urban settlement have been different from an early medieval rural dwelling of this time – a rath, a crannog or dun situated in the countryside? Such questions not only potentially interrogate the reality of people’s lives in the past, but also open up topics such as diet, health and disease in urban and rural settings, the alteration and management of past environments and emergence of new forms of urban and rural communities in Europe. Dirt, Dwellings and Culture explores the living conditions and environments as experienced by early medieval people in Ireland, touching upon a wide range of environmental, architectural, artefactual and historical datasets from significant archaeological excavations of settlement sites across Ireland and Northern Europe. At its heart it focuses on a new and significant body of insect analysis from one of the most iconic sites of Viking Dublin – Fishamble Street. These new data are discussed with reference to other excavated and previously published research, especially from the rural rath at Deer Park Farms, Co. Antrim, and some preliminary data from Drumclay Crannog, Co. Fermanagh. The book concludes with a wider discussion of dirt, disease and hygiene in early medieval Ireland: what can the environmental data and historical texts tell us about the way that people in early medieval Ireland felt about and interacted with ‘dirt’ and dirty places?

Preface

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter 2: Viking Dublin and the Fishamble Street Excavations in context

Chapter 3: Methods of this study

Chapter 4: Insect analyses through time

Chapter 5: Reconstructing living conditions in the houses, plots, streets, and surrounds of Viking Dublin

Chapter 6: Conclusions: Thinking about dirt and hygiene in early medieval societies in Ireland and beyond

Appendix 1: Technical report appendix

Bibliography

  • By (author) Eileen Reilly