Archaeology

Contact Details

Title	Lecturer
Address	Archaeology University College Cork Cork Ireland
Telephone:	+353-21-490-3000
Fax:	+ 353 21 490 416
Email:	ei.ccu@doarrab
Title	Lecturer
Address	Archaeology Department of Archaeology University College Cork, Ireland
Telephone:	+353 (0)21 4904163
Email:	ei.ccu@doarrab

Biography:

Dr Barra O'Donnabhain, who holds a PhD degree in Anthropology from the University of Chicago, is a bioarchaeologist who has been conducting archaeological research in Ireland and other parts of the world for over 25 years.  His publications cover a wide temporal span as well as a broad range of themes but are characterized by an integrative approach in their reconstructions of past lives.  This is exemplified by recent papers dealing with the political use of the ritualized violence of executions (2011) and the use of bone chemistry to characterise diet and identity in Viking Age Dublin (2012).  He has also challenged in print the traditional narrative of 'Celtic Ireland'.  O'Donnabhain has directed and collaborated in archaeological projects in a number of world areas.  His recent focus has been on the bioarchaeology of institutional confinement.  From 2009 to 2011, he directed excavations at a putative leper hospital in south west Ireland and in 2012 he began excavations at a 19^th century prison.  Also in 2012, he directed the mortuary component of excavations at an Inca outpost in southern Peru in collaboration with researchers from UCLA and USC.  He is on the Board of Directors of the Los Angeles-based Institute for Field Research.  He is co-editor of the 2013 volume, The Dead Tell Tales, published by the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLA.