This week we were delighted to welcome News Talk’s (106-108 FM) Henry McKean of Under the Covers fame to one of our on-going excavations in Galway. Henry was on site to get a clearer understanding of what exactly archaeologists do and was keen to talk to everyone involved.

The excavation is split into two distinct areas and Henry was first drawn to the excavation of the human remains in the newly discovered cemetery. He started by interviewing our on-site osteoarchaeologist who explained our techniques of recording and recovery. The other members of the team were happy to oblige Henry as he quizzed them about the remains they were carefully exposing.  He also met our on-site faunal remains specialist Claudia Tommasino Suárez who began by first showing Henry some of the animal bone recovered from site. Claudia then went on to explain the scientific processes undertaken for the analysis of the bones recovered and what this data would show about human activity on this site. Later our metallurgical specialist showed Henry a number of the interesting small finds that we have recovered during the course of the excavation to date.

Henry was unable to dig on site due to health & safety considerations, but we were able to let him loose (under supervision) on our soil heap to carry out some licensed metal detection. During Henry´s two minutes with the detector we discovered one medieval iron nail which will be added to the archive of materials recovered from the site.

All the Rubicon archaeologists enjoyed their time ‘under the covers’ with Henry, and hope that he enjoyed his foray into Irish field archaeology! Henry McKean’s radio show Under the Covers is broadcast each Saturday between 09.00 and 10.00 and will feature his adventures with Rubicon on Saturday 22nd January. If you miss the show, you can listen back online by clicking here.