2018:908 - 10 Church Bay, Demesne, Rathlin, Antrim

A BH3 Evaluation programme, comprising two linear trenches, was undertaken at 10 Church Bay, Rathlin.

Human remains were uncovered during the excavation of Trench 1, approximately 21m from the south-western extent of the trench at a depth of around 1m. A cut for a cable trench ran northward across the trench and upon further investigation appeared to have at least partially disturbed the remains, resulting in most of the spinal column being recovered from the redeposited soil in the vicinity of the burial.

The Burial
There was no sign of a grave cut and the body had been inhumed in raised beach material less than 20m from the shore, though located at the base of an overgrown hill slope. The skeleton appeared to be slightly crouched and orientated approximately north to south.

Osteological analysis showed it to be the skeleton of a small old woman, with extensive and numerous osteological changes relating to osteoarthritis in the vertebral column, knees, and hands. Major dental issues, including the loss of nine teeth, left the right side of the mouth edentulous and incapable of chewing, while a major abscess on the left mandible left a 10mm diameter hole. Unusual tooth abrasions indicated that she may have undertaken textile production and used that side of her mouth as a ‘third hand’. She also had cribra orbitalia, attributed to iron-deficiency, anaemia in her orbits and chronic sinusitis, inflammation of the membrane lining of the maxillary sinuses of the skull.

One petrous temporal bone was sampled for ancient DNA analysis. She was determined to be female and genome sequencing did not plot near modern British or Irish populations, instead plotting more closely with modern Scandinavian and modern Northern European populations. Therefore she was probably Scandinavian, and the closest fit is among Norwegian/Swedish populations. DNA analysis also indicated that she probably would have been dark haired with brown eyes and fairly dark skin.
The calibrated radiocarbon date ranges returned were AD 668-770 and AD 651-765. These predate the earliest recorded date in the Irish Annals (Annals of Ulster) of Norse attacks on Rathlin, AD 794-795, by, at the closest, more than 20 years.

The burial was accompanied by two bronze brooches, both of which displayed signs of gilding and were of 8th- or 9th-century date, one of insular Irish design and the other of Scandinavian manufacture.

The insular brooch was a chip carved mount, originally designed to decorate a shrine and later repurposed as a brooch. The other was an oval brooch, probably originally one of a pair, and is of an early Scandinavian type not before found in the British Isles. It is most closely paralleled with an example from Norway from a woman’s grave at Grande, Sør-Trøndelag, dated to ‘before 800’.

The burial lay to the west of at least four other known burials, which may also have been Norse, based on the records and a small number of artefacts uncovered during the 18th and 19th centuries.

This is the first archaeologically excavated Viking burial in the North of Ireland in over a century and with a form of early brooch not previously recorded in the British Isles. It would also appear to be one of the earliest dated Viking burials in the British Isles.

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