IRELAND

Dr. Reilly is clear that her research funding has allowed her to embark on
collaborations that would not otherwise have been possible: ‘The
visibility that working within an academic institution brings is really
invaluable. As part of my research I’m working on material from the
earliest town-foundations of the city of Antwerp, dating from the 9 th and
10 th centuries. This research has brought with it collaborations with
archaeologists in Belgium, the Netherlands and northern France who are
researching early urbanism there. I am also collaborating with colleagues
in other schools in UCD, such as Geological Sciences and Medical
Sciences, on some interesting side-projects related to disease and health
in the early medieval period, a natural follow-on from my core research
in many ways. I am also involved in an exciting developing project in
South Africa, which will hopefully be looking at the living environments
of our early modern human ancestors (ca. 100,000–300,000 years ago)
through analysis of occupation floor deposits of cave sites there.’
Within UCD, collaboration with colleagues in the School of Archaeology
– and particularly with her mentor Professor Aidan O’Sullivan – on the
developing Centre for Experimental Archaeology and Ancient
Technologies, has been hugely rewarding: ‘What is happening in UCD
involved the creation of a facility unique to any archaeology department
in the world! My own research is feeding directly into the reconstruction
of two early medieval houses there: a round house based on one of the
houses from Deer Park Farms, and a typical Dublin house, Pat Wallace’s
Type-1, three-aisled house excavated at Fishamble Street and elsewhere
in Dublin, which would have been the standard “3-bed semi” of its day.
Through carrying out experiments within and around these
reconstructions – before, during and after building – we hope to come
to a better understanding of how people lived at this time, how they
sourced materials, how they maintained their houses and managed their
living space within and around them.’
Dr. Reilly’s ambition is also to expand her work and research network to
look at the implications of life during the early medieval period for
people’s health: ‘Investigative techniques such as ancient DNA
sequencing of parasites and metagenomics - the study of whole spectra
of DNA sequences from soil samples - can potentially identify the actual
diseases suffered by people at this time. I’d be keen to extend this to early
towns and settlements across north-western Europe and I hope that my
collaborations with archaeologists on the continent and here in UCD will
provide opportunities to do this.’
‘What is happening in UCD involved the creation of a
facility unique to any archaeology department in the
world! My own research is feeding directly into the
reconstruction of two early medieval houses there: a
round house based on one of the houses from Deer Park
Farms, and a typical Dublin house, Pat Wallace’s Type-1,
three-aisled house excavated at Fishamble Street and
elsewhere in Dublin, which would have been the
standard “3-bed semi” of its day.’
discovery Ireland 50,51