Moynagh Lough Studies I

Michael Potterton

• Publisher: Four Courts Press
• Year: 2026
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781801512770
• Subtopic: Archaeology
• Index: Social Sciences

Lough is one of the most significant archaeological sites ever discovered in Ireland. From 1980 to 1998 excavations were directed by John Bradley. This exceptional multi-period wetland site yielded a rich artefactual assemblage from multiple levels and phases – Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze Age and medieval. Over the years, Bradley produced interim reports and published several articles about the findings, but when he passed away suddenly in 2014, the final excavation report remained incomplete. The Moynagh Lough Project was re-established in 2018 and several strands of post-excavation research have been completed. With twenty essays by a field of national and international experts and specialists, Moynagh Lough Studies is the first book-length volume dedicated to this important archaeological site. It contains essays on medieval and prehistoric artefacts including bone, clay, crucibles, glass, leather, lithics, metalworking, textiles, quern-stones, and a very rare ogam[1]inscribed antler, as well as specialist reports on archaeo-botany, charcoal and wood, dendrochronology, faunal remains, a biomolecular study of coprolites, and the isotopic analysis of pig remains. There are contributions placing the site within its wider landscape setting, early medieval high-status sites, its international trade network, and its significance to the new Nobber Heritage Centre.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyrights
• Dedication
• Special Acknowledgments
• Contents
• Abbreviations
• Contributors
• Foreword
• Chapter 1: Introduction: returning to Moynagh Lough
• Chapter 2: Loch Dé Muindech briefly revisited
• Chapter 3: Moynagh Lough and its wider landscape setting
• Chapter 4: International trade and exchange at Moynagh Lough
• Chapter 5: Housing crisis: real and poetic uses of Moynagh Lough
• Chapter 6: Moynagh Lough and Nobber Heritage Centre
• Chapter 7: Craft island?: results to date from the Moynagh Lough Non-Ferrous Metalworking Research Project
• Chapter 8: An investigation of pinched crucibles from Moynagh Lough
• Chapter 9: The leather finds from Moynagh Lough
• Chapter 10: Tracing the threads: textile technology and textiles at Moynagh Lough
• Chapter 11: The combs of Moynagh Lough
• Chapter 12: The ogam inscription on an antler tine from Moynagh Lough (I-MEA-003)
• Chapter 13: Investigating the coprolites of Moynagh Lough using biomolecular approaches
• Chapter 14: Tree-ring studies at Moynagh Lough
• Chapter 15: Charcoal and wood from prehistoric and medieval Moynagh Lough
• Chapter 16: The archaeobotanical record at Moynagh Lough from prehistory to the early Middle Ages
• Chapter 17: Using isotope analysis to investigate prehistoric human-pig interactions at Moynagh Lough
• Chapter 18: 'Six spearheads and four probable roughouts'? The Moynagh Points from Moynagh Lough
• Index