UCD Centre for Experimental Archaeology & Material Culture

“At Samhain, people believed the veil between this world and the other grew thin, when fairies moved through the land, and the dead drew near.”
Prof Aidan O’Sullivan @ucdarchaeology.bsky.social
📷 Filmed at @experimentarchaeol.bsky.social

youtube.com/shorts/aCnDu...

Professor AidanO’Sullivan, Head of School of Archaeology at UCD, brings history to life, carving this year’s Irish Halloween Jack O’Lantern from a turnip.

@aidanosullivan.bsky.social

A traditional Irish ghost turnip for Halloween #OicheShamhna #Samhain #Halloween #thinveilbetweentheworlds #NaSídhe

This was one my best, we’re carving Irish Halloween turnips today, in homage to the ur-turnip from 1943 from Ballyfin, Co Donegal, in National Museum of Ireland

@nmireland.bsky.social
#Halloween #Samhain #OicheShamhna

An Irish ghost turnip - Halloween Jack-o-Lantern, everytime I make one they look different … 😳

History Smelled. Here’s How We’re Sniffing It Out How can reconstructing long-lost smells of ancient artifacts help us connect with the past?

Really nice coverage on our research on ancient scents by @sciam.bsky.social and @gayoung.bsky.social
🏺🧪👩‍🔬

www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-...

Back in the winter of 2012, it says here, we decided to position UCD School of Archaeology as a “leading centre for experimental archaeology in Europe.”

… 🙂

Dr Anita Radini is growing dye-plants at UCD Centre for Experimental Archaeology & Material Culture, such as madder, woad and weld.

And they’ll be used by our own students in dyeing textiles

It’s time to apply for our online Grad Cert or our on-campus MSc/GradDip Experimental Archaeology

The bed in our early medieval house is ready for its blankets …

True even, but through will do too.. 🤣

UCD Centre for Experimental Archaeology & Material Culture, Dublin - where dreams come through 🙂

UCD Archaeology students doing their experimental archaeology practicals today, as they do every Friday at CEAMC! This week, stone carving and flint knapping with Dr Anita Radini and Dr Ryan Lash, assisted ably by Lucy Robinson and Deborah Buchanan.

The Resin That Remembered: How Ancient Birch Tar Is Rewriting the Story of Neolithic Life New biomolecular evidence from prehistoric chewing gum reveals the intimate daily habits, diets, and toolmaking ingenuity of Europe’s first farmers.

Ancient DNA from Neolithic chewing gum reveals how Europe’s first farmers lived, worked, and ate. Birch tar preserves the intimacy of their daily lives in astonishing molecular detail. #Archaeology #Neolithic #AncientDNA #Anthropology www.anthropology.net/p/the-resin-...

Delighted to welcome Assoc. Prof Roy Flechner’s 3rd year class on “History from below: Rural life in the middle ages (HIS32800)”, to our Centre for Experimental Archaeology & Material Culture, where we explored daily life and work in an early medieval Irish rath

8th National Monuments Service annual archaeology conference Within|Without: the archaeology of partitions

"Within|Without: The Archaeology of Partitions", a conference exploring how partitions shape who we are. Join a day of dialogue on how we divide and connect across time.

🗓 Sat 18 Oct 2025, 9:15–17:30
📍 Edmund Burke Theatre, Trinity College Dublin

🌍 In-person and online: 👉 bit.ly/Within-Without

Speakers include Prof Aidan O'Sullivan, @ucdarchaeology.bsky.social, and other leading Irish and international researchers.

Meet our education team at the Ploughing Championship 2025

Put your questions to the Irish Antiquities division at the Ploughing 2025

Minister of Culture, Communications and Sport Patrick O'Donovan met the Irish Antiquities division, at the Ploughing Championship 2025.

Come and meet the team from the National Museum of Ireland at the National Ploughing Championships, Screggan, Tullamore, Co. Offaly, taking place from 16th to 18th September 2025.
www.museum.ie/en-IE/News/T...

UCD 2025/26 academic year is beginning!

First up, ARCH30500: Experimental Archaeology & Ancient Technologies led by Dr Brendan O’Neill

Our third years (and some MSc students) on a week long course making pottery, casting bronze, making huts in one day using hazel and natural ties, etc

Interested in experimental archaeology & material culture? This online graduate certificate at UCD is just the best fun - and you can do it from your own home!

hub.ucd.ie/usis/!W_HU_M...

Carving a stone with hammer and chisel

Dr Ryan Lash discusses the art and materiality of early medieval stone carving

Tuatha Members having a go at stone carving

Smelting copper in an open furnace

A wonderful day with Tuatha Members at @experimentarchaeol.bsky.social, where Dr Brendan O'Neill led a workshop on casting Bronze Age axes, and Dr Ryan Lash had us carving early medieval cross slabs and cursing stones.

A truly engaging, fun, and immersive day!

Looking forward to the next outing!

It was a fantastic experience for us to get hands-on with casting an Early Bronze Age axe at the @experimentarchaeol.bsky.social

Dr Brendan O'Neill and Tuatha Members went through the whole process, from creating the clay tuyere & crucible to using the bellows to the all-important pour at the end.

We offer an MSc, or Graduate Diploma (both on-campus) or Graduate Certificate (online, Distance Learning) in Experimental Archaeology & Material Culture programmes.

Lots of seminars, workshops, practicals every Friday or also options - if online -to travel to Ireland for a week’s crafts & making

Steve and Andrea White at a plaque in UCD School of Archaeology acknowledging their financial support

Steve and Andrea White at CEAMC

Delighted to welcome Steve and Andrea White to UCD School of Archaeology and to thank them for their generous philanthropic support of our UCD Centre for Experimental Archaeology & Material Culture (CEAMC), through their Mary Agnes McDonnell LeBlanc donation. 👏🙏🙂

Only the future is unchangeable; the past is constantly changing.

How ongoing research and new methods continually change our image of the past, our images of the past in the truest sense of the word.

The shaman with many faces:

Shane Smith, filmmaker, & colleagues are filming a movie in the UCD Centre for Experimental Archaeology & Material Culture today, “Stone Elegy”

“A mythic tale of connection and survival set against the vivid landscapes of ancient Ireland.”

You can support the film on Instagram @thinveil_pictures

Drop-In Manuscript Makers!
📍 National Museum of Ireland – Kildare Street
📅 Wed 30 July| 13:30–15:30
🎟️ Free | No booking needed
Step into the world of early medieval scribes! Try calligraphy, explore ancient pigments & learn how treasures like the Book of Kells were made
www.museum.ie/en-IE/Museum...

A photoshop reconstruction showing an early medieval thatched house and the Skehacreggaun stick in the doorway

The Skehacreggaun, Mungret, Co. Limerick stick, made of willow, dated to the 7th century AD

"Is this Ireland’s earliest hurley? A possible 7th century AD cammán from Skehacreggaun, Mungret, Co. Limerick"
earlymedievalarchaeologyproject.wordpress.com/2025/07/19/i...

#Hurling #Camogie #All-Ireland #Medieval #Ireland

A promotional image for our upcoming webinar The Early Medieval Origins of Hurling and Camogie – the main image features the reconstructed roundhouse at the Centre for Experimental Archaeology at UCD and a picture of the speaker Professor Aidan O Sullivan

Join us for our Tuatha Talk Webinar: The Early Medieval Origins of Hurling & Camogie with Professor Aidan O'Sullivan

In this richly illustrated lecture, Professor @aidanosullivan.bsky.social of @ucdarchaeology.bsky.social will explore the evidence for the origins of hurling and its development.

“Experimental archaeology: making, understanding, storytelling” www.archaeopress.com/Archaeopress...

Scientists Retrace 30,000-Year-Old Sea Voyage, in a Hollowed-Out Log

Scientists Retrace 30,000-Year-Old Sea Voyage, in a Hollowed-Out Log
Japanese researchers turned to “experimental archaeology” to study how ancient humans navigated powerful ocean currents and migrated offshore

www.nytimes.com/2025/06/25/s...