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Through excavations and experimental reconstructions, archaeologists from UCC have found that the diet of the Irish in the Iron Age consisted mainly of dairy and pigmeat, along with barley and wheat.
The excavations, which were funded by the Heritage Council and Transport Infrastructure Ireland, have been gathering information in the southeast of Ireland over the past few years.
A team from UCC joined forces with UCD, Bradford University and Warwick University to carry out the work. This included extracting a core from a lake in the southeast, which dates back to the end of the Ice Age, 11,000 years ago.
Open day
Speaking of the find, Dr Ben Gearey, archaeology lecturer in UCC, said the analysis helps to identity the “pollen grains from the plants that people were cultivating during prehistory”. The excavation team can then compare the plants with evidence of settlement and agriculture.
As part of the study, the university has organised an open day at Cork Public Museum this Saturday 20 August, to coincide with Heritage Week. The open day will provide members of the public with the opportunity to sample the Iron Age diet and listen to the analysis of cereal grains and animal bones found on archaeological digs.
Reconstructing the stories of people’s lives
Dr Katharina Becker, lecturer at UCC, said the event is a way of giving the public the chance to see how archaeologists “connect and make sense of the minute pieces of evidence found” to “reconstruct the stories of people’s lives”.
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