Our Medieval Neighbors a Thousand Years ago

In most of the posts in After Santa Cruz, I find connections between life in Ireland with larger themes that connect to life in Santa Cruz, and our friends there. 

This post isn't like that. Thirty years ago, archeologists excavated the cashel across the road from us.  Inside the remains of a circular wall they found the remains of a little house built around the year 900. There is nothing special about it, it was just a house that poor people lived in. I'm obsessed with it. I don't expect anyone else to be, but I'm sharing what I learned, anyway. 

https://www.ucd.ie/t4cms/emap_report_2_1_complete.pdf
At Rinnaraw, Co. Donegal, there is a similarly located (i.e. coastal) ‘cashel’ that produced a house that might be argued to show Norse influences. The central stone-built house, dating to around the ninth century, at the cashel of Rinnaraw (which is situated on the western side of Sheephaven Bay, Co. Donegal), was compared to similar Scandinavian examples with rounded external corners at the Orkney Islands (Fanning 1987-92; Comber 2006). Both the historical sources and further ninth century Scandinavian stray-find objects in the general area support the idea that the northwest coast was an area of importance to the Vikings. Alternatively, however, Rinnaraw could be an Irish settlement whose inhabitants were influenced by and trading in the traditions and ideas of the Atlantic seaways of Ireland and Scotland.

The Rinnaraw Cashel is in Rinnaraw townland. Our house is in Sand Hill townland which—until the spew of holiday homes were built in the late twentieth-century—was nothing but the dunes between the fishing villages of Dunfanaghy and Portnablagh.  

This map is from the 1840s. The Sandhill quarry is marked in the lower left.  The red dot near the road is the "mass rock," and the red dot south of the mass rock is the "Cashel Suibhne." The red dot just above the "R" in "Rinnaraw" is where the archeologists excavated the cashel. 

The Irish word "Rin" means a cape or headland, and Rinnaraw is exactly that, a small rock-rimmed peninsula, with a beach on the west, a cove on the east, a steep hill to the south, facing the raw North Atlantic Sea.

Nobody around here uses the name Rinnaraw. I first saw it on that map. 

Then I saw it in a google search. 

Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy: Archaeology, Culture, History, Literature © 2006 Royal Irish Academyhttps://www.jstor.org/stable/40657878 Tom Fanning's excavations at Rinnaraw Cashel, Portnablagh, Co. Donegal[0035-8991] yr:2006 vol:106C pg:67 -124

UC Galway Archeology professor Tom Fanning led five excavations of the site, using the opportunity to train archeologists. 

His first report was published in 1987.  

The site consists of a small rock-platform some 25m in diameter, marked on the later editions of the OS. maps as a cashel and included as such in the Archaeological Survey of County Donegal. The project was designed to provide training and experience in archaeological surveying and excavation for the students of the Department of Archaeology, U.C.G., and to determine the nature and date of the site and its features. The work was carried out over a six-week period in July/August 1987 with the aid of a small grant from the Department and in association with the Portnablagh Hotel. The entire site was contour-surveyed under the direction of Miss Angela Gallagher and, following this, excavation was concentrated in the north-west sector of the site where a number of grass-covered mounds had been observed. Here the foundations of a dry-stone built structure, probably some form of house site, were uncovered. The internal wall-face of coursed stones along the southern side measures 5.5m. The outer walling is very collapsed and damaged and contains a considerable number of small shattered stones and pebbles. In the southern sector of the interior, the floor area is paved with well-laid slabs or flagstones upon which lie a number of large structural stones. Traces of firing and charcoal were uncovered amongst the fallen wall-stones above the paving. Finds, mainly from the core of the wall and its collapse, included fragments of iron slag, furnace bottoms and a portion of a small lignite bracelet. A further season is planned for 1988. (Excavations Bulletin 1987)
Thomas Fanning, Dept. of Archaeology, University College, Galway

It's wonderful to have found published descriptions of the archaeology of a place so near to where I live, but besides the scientific reports, one of those students wrote a delightful first-person account working with Tom Fanning in that remote Donegal town.

Tom had dispatched one further graduate student to Donegal a few days ahead of us to begin desodding of the area for the new season. After we finally arrived at the site – Tom never broke the speed limit on any occasion I ever travelled with him – we walked up to the newly uncovered area to inspect the progress. I still remember standing there in the dimming light, the warm breeze rustling the grass, and just feeling so incredibly excited that tomorrow I was going to start my first ever archaeological excavation! Tom and the post-graduate were in deep conversation about the desodding and the potential for discovering features by the time my mind wandered off. Something on the ground had caught my attention and I reached down and picked it up. It was a small piece of what I now know to be metallic slag. However, as I was in the process of examining it, the post-graduate was saying ‘… possible metallic object … have left it in situ for the moment … where did it go? …’ It was at this point Tom caught my eye and angrily spat ‘Chapple! Put that down!’ Perhaps not the most auspicious of starts.

The author, Robert Chapple, ended up becoming an archeologist himself. It's worth reading, or just skimming for the photographs. If you are as obsessed as I am. 

It was only half an hour later, when I found an artefact of my own, that I realised that there was a delicate etiquette at work here of which I had not been fully aware. I uncovered an interesting looking stone, gave it a bit of a brush down and realised that it was a shattered portion of a rotary disc quern. I may not have had much experience in archaeology, but I could recognise this! It had a smoothed underside where the grain had been ground against the base stone. It had a coarser, curving surface, and at its thickest edge, I could just make out the curvature of the central perforation where the grain was fed in. I was well chuffed with my discovery. I got up from my kneeling position and walked over to Tom, standing sentinel-like at the plane table. ‘I need the measuring tape!’ I said ‘I’ve just found a piece of a quern stone’. Tom – physically and metaphorically – looked down on me (he was very tall … and I remain quite Hobbit-like) and, with a brief sigh, replied ‘Let me see’. I took him over and showed him the fragment. He looked down at me some more and said ‘No’. I couldn’t believe it! How could he not recognise this for what it was? Admittedly, it had broken in a slightly unusual way, so that it resembled a slightly squashed ‘Z’ that has been left out in the sun. Astonished at his lack of perspicacity, I began to enlighten him, but I was silenced with another swift ‘No’. He sighed and explained ‘Until I confirm your suspicion, you’ve not found anything. It is only for the site archaeologist to say what has been discovered’. Well, that was me told! 

Fanning published reports of each year's work: 

The second season of excavations at this site was undertaken during a five-week period from late July into August 1988. The work was again undertaken in association with the Portnablagh Hotel and was designed to provide training in excavation techniques for the students of the Department of Archaeology, UCG. A number of foreign students from Denmark and France also participated in the programme of work on the site. The excavations revealed the plan and form of the stone-built house-site whose foundations had been partly exposed the previous season. The structure is of rectangular plan measuring, internally, some 7m by 5.5m. Only a few of the external facing stones survive but these indicate a widening of the wall widths at midpoint on all four sides and rounded external corners. Internally, the angular corner jointings are clearly defined by a combination of horizontal dry-stone walling and upright slabs as known from some of the Norse houses in the Orkneys and Shetlands. Within the southern half of the house the floor area is completely paved with large, well laid slabs. This section of the house was delimited by a single course of stones set end to end. In the northern half some further paving was uncovered at a higher level due to the rising bedrock on which the house was built. Towards the centre of the floor area, the upper levels of what appears to be a small, stone-lined hearth were uncovered, surrounded by some deposits of charcoal and calcined bone. Nearby, close to the northern wall face, a substantial shell midden was partly exposed. This consists, largely, of periwinkles and limpets. Other finds consisted of iron slag, furnace bottoms, and a number of small stone discs. A portion of the lower stone of a rotary disc quern was discovered in the damaged wall-footings along the western side of the house. A further season is planned for 1989. (Excavations Bulletin 1988)
Thomas Fanning, Dept. of Archaeology, University College, Galway.

The periwinkles and limpets mentioned still cover the rocks on the beach in front of where the house was. 








The third year: 

A third season of excavations was undertaken at the above site over a seven-week period from June to August 1989. The investigations were concentrated on the house-site and the area to the south of this stone-built structure. Once again the programme of work was facilitated by the Portnablagh Hotel and this enabled the students and graduates of the Department of Archaeology to acquire experience and training in a variety of excavation techniques. Removal of the overburden of soil and charcoal mix within the northern sector of the house revealed some further traces of paving. The irregular pattern of the pavement in this area as opposed to the fully paved southern 'room' may have been due, in part, to the proximity of the local quartzite bedrock. Excavation along the western wall foundations exposed a narrow entrance feature, 1m in width, located about midway along the wall collapse. Some paving stones had survived in this opening whilst externally a further sizeable shell-midden composed of limpets and periwinkles came to light.Trowelling over the paved floor area and removal (after planning) of the north-south sectional baulk revealed a group of post-holes in two parallel rows. The post-holes, in some instances complete with packing stones, were placed so as to provide the ground supports for a series of roofing timbers. When fully exposed the partitioned southern 'room' appears to have had a centrally placed doorway and openings at either side. Small finds from the occupational debris overlying the floor surface and the hearth feature included iron knife blades, stone line-weights and discs, and a lignite ring.The two cuttings opened up to the south and east of the house site did not reveal any definite features but two interesting quern-stones came to light below the humus level, One of these was a very well-made example of a saddle-quern and the second stone appears to be a portion of a trough-quern. The latter type of quern-stone is uncommon and is best paralleled outside of Ireland from sites in the northern isles of Scotland, The area of these finds and some sections along the perimeter of the enclosure will be the main targets of the season planned for 1990. (Excavations Bulletin 1989)
Thomas Fanning, Dept. of Archaeology, University College, Galway.

Fourth year: 

Excavation within the house was largely confined to the remaining deposits of fine black soil beside the entrance which produced a further portion of the lignite ring discovered in the first season. The shallow drain feature directly north of the internal partition was followed as it exited underneath the western wall into a small sump or pit. Samples of the sticky whitish clay from this sump were taken for analysis by the Botany Department at UCG. A charcoal sample from the lowest levels of the central stone-lined hearth was also sent to Groningen and produced a C-14 date of 1330+60 BP. The two quadrants to the south of the house site were opened up as far as the perimeter of the rock platform. Both areas yielded considerable quantities of iron slag including furnace bottoms. In the south-eastern sector a number of large paving stones were uncovered together with some fragments of coursed stones or footings hinting at the presence of a second structure beside the rock outcrop on the perimeter of the site. From the soil above and around these stones about a hundred sherds of pottery were recovered. The pieces consist mainly of body sherds of a coarse hand-made blackened fabric similar to those found in the western midden. Rim sherds are of the everted type and the few base sherds indicate that the ware was flat-bottomed with an outward splay. A portion of the upper stone of a small disc-type quern and a complete furnace bottom were found at the same level. A number of cuttings were extended beyond the perimeter on the eastern and western sides. On the eastern side the bedrock showed prominently whilst on the west the basal layer of a wall base could be discerned. Examination of the lithological types at the site by Dr Michael Williams of the Department of Geology, U.C.G., showed that the bedrock is of metadolerite. Some of the large blocks on the northern perimeter are feldspar porphyries indicating that a form of man-made enclosure existed along at least a portion of the rocky platform. The paved area within the southern sector of the house consists of mica shist and an ironstone. (Excavations Bulletin 1990).
Thomas Fanning, Dept. of Archaeology, University College, Galway.

Fifth year:

A short season of excavation at this site was undertaken during August 1992 in conjunction with the programme of conservation and presentation work funded by the National Heritage Council. The archaeological investigations were funded by the Dept of Archaeology, UCG, and the owners of the site, the Portnablagh Hotel. The work consisted essentially of an examination of the soil and stony infill removed in the process of cleaning and conserving the wall foundations of the byre-house. During this operation a number of artefacts were recovered including an unfinished serpentinite loom weight, portion of a  serpentinite ring and a quantity of iron slag and furnace bottoms. One of the stones utilised in the wall makeup along the western side proved, on examination, to be a lozenge-shaped stone lamp. Another stone object, a large perforated sandstone disc, probably a whetstone, was uncovered in the open area to the south of the house foundations. This object can be paralleled amongst the Viking-Age finds from the Dublin excavations. The northern wall-footings yielded a number of bone points and iron knife blades associated with the shell midden deposits. The enclosure which forms the cashel-type feature of the site consists largely of metadolerite outcrop. Cleaning along the line of this feature revealed the remains of a stony build-up which, in places, would have strengthened and completed the enclosing element. Soil samples for archaeo-botanical sampling were taken from a number of crucial features within the byre-house including the hearth, byre drain and sump and the midden locations along the northern and western sectors of the cashel wall. Samples of wood charcoal for C14 dating were obtained from the hearth area and the wall-footings to augment the dating evidence provided from previous seasons. (Excavations Bulletin 1992)
Thomas Fanning, Dept of Archaeology, University College, Galway

And that was the last that Tom Fanning was able to report, because he died shortly afterward. A government initiative to support unpublished excavations in 2004 sponsored the work of Fanning's colleague, Michelle Comber, to analyze the work at Rinnaraw cashel. 


You can read her entire paper on JStor, but here's some excerpts.