A History of Ireland in Ten Body Parts (eBook)

The human skull has changed significantly over time. Think of the Neanderthal skull, with its large middle face, angled cheekbones, hefty brow ridges and huge nose. Neanderthal skeletons look recognisably human but contain not-too-subtle differences that remind us of how fundamentally different earlier types of human beings once appeared. Over the past 10,000 years, as the Ice Ages receded, the bodies and faces of most large animals grew smaller, including humans. Our brains shrank slightly too. Humans no longer depended as much on large jaws because we began to chew softer, more processed foods than our predecessors. Some scientists even believe that our faces are generally smaller than those of humans living only 300 years ago.1

Skulls are useful for protecting our brains and housing our facial muscles. Faces have a crucial psychological function for humans. They are central to perception, cognition and behaviour. The uniqueness of each and every one of our faces makes us singularly identifiable to others. We rely heavily upon facial recognition to remember the myriad of individuals we encounter throughout our lives. As our brains perceive, process and remember faces, they also guide the presumptions we make about other people’s behaviours and personalities. It’s for such reasons that skulls, heads and faces have acquired such symbolic importance in human culture. This symbolism also helps explain why many figures of historical importance ended up having their heads brutally removed.

CLONYCAVAN MAN’S HEAD

While gazing upon the remains of Clonycavan Man, our neural pathways recognise a human face. The remnants of his facial features automatically prompt our brain to process the neural mechanisms of face perception. So, when looking at him, we start to pose fundamental questions. What type of person was Clonycavan Man? What was his personality like? How did he behave? How did he live his life? Faces are very communicative, explaining why Clonycavan Man’s contorted expressions, the apparent eye-to-eye contact and the preserved mouth and ears all unnerve the observer. His ancient facial expression looks far from happy, encouraging us to empathise with the pathos and sadness of a man being brutally murdered.2

Clonycavan Man is one of Ireland’s oldest faces. His head is contorted and flattened due to the weight of the peat and his skull having dissolved in the bog. Nonetheless, in the 2000s a team of forensic anthropologists and artists used a state-of-the-art computer system to recreate his facial appearance. He looks surprisingly modern. His hair sweeps backwards from the front to form a bun on top of the head, in a tall arrangement. He also had short stubble above and below his lip and under his chin, resembling a moustache and goatee beard. Remnants of a hair tie were found too.3

Visitors find themselves curiously drawn to the hair still appended to Clonycavan Man’s skull. Human hair is simply not meant to survive through the millennia. It is an extremely rare occurrence when ancient hair becomes miraculously visible to us. In 1780, the Drumkeeragh body was discovered in Co. Down, the remains of an ancient woman found by surveyors near Drumkeeragh Mountain, close to Ballynahinch. A braided lock of hair from the body was given to Elizabeth Rawdon (also known as Lady Moira) in 1781, whose interest in the body encouraged her to publish an article in the Journal of Archaeologia. In this, she recalled how Lord Moira had ordered a survey to be undertaken of a farm on his estate. It was the surveyor who brought the plait of hair to Lady Moira, informing her that he had taken it from a human skull recently dug up by a tenant.

In a small turbary situated at the foot of the Drumkeeragh Mountain, not far from Slieve Croob, the heart of the mountainous region known as the Dromara Hills, the tenant had been cutting turf for his winter’s fuel at a depth of four-and-a-half feet when he came across some hard gravel. Digging further, he discovered the skeleton of a young woman. Around the bones lay many preserved garments. Further investigation revealed that the tenant’s father had been digging in the very same area some fifty years earlier to a depth of eleven feet and had been the first to discover, and then rebury, the corpse. After being bribed with a handsome payment, the tenant handed over the plait of hair.4

This was the first documented scientific investigation of the remains of a bog body, and the lock of hair and some cloth fragments still survive today. A nineteenth-century description by prominent doctor William Wilde (father of Oscar) read:

The hair of the individual was long, silky and of a deep chestnut colour, but how far this brownish-auburn tint is the original shade of the hair, or the result of the bog colouring, is questionable. Its present hue would be much coveted in our own day. The plait was formed of three strands, interwoven after the manner depicted in the adjoining woodcut, and closely resembles the mode of wearing the hair in vogue among children and young girls a few years ago. The entire plait is now fourteen inches long.5

But Clonycavan Man was much older, making the survival of his hair all the more fortuitous. The hair is also of interest because of the insights which it reveals into ancient Ireland. It seems that Clonycavan Man lived at the height of the Celtic Iron Age. At the time, the Celts were divided into a bewildering 150 kingdoms across Ireland. To confuse matters further, each had its own ruler. Ireland’s Ice Age ended around 15,000 BC, and Ireland and Britain separated from the European continent around 12,000 BC. The first evidence of permanent human residence in Ireland dates from around 10,500 BC. Ireland’s prehistoric period ended around AD 400, somewhat later than the rest of Europe and Near East, and the island was probably fully populated by hunter-gatherer humans between 7000 and 6500 BC. Ireland’s Bronze Age commenced around 2500 BC and merged into the Iron Age when the Celts arrived between 500 and 300 BC.6 Clonycavan Man seems to have lived towards the end of that period. Further afield, the Romans were conquering much of Europe, but Ireland remained unconquered.

The Celts were composed of various groups who gradually developed a single culture based largely upon the use of bronze and iron. They arrived in Ireland with a working knowledge of iron and ordered their society into a hierarchy of warriors, with druids at the top of the social scale. Their kings were crowned at the Lia Fáil, a summit on the Hill of Tara, close to the bog into which Clonycavan Man was thrown. The three blows which felled him were not applied arbitrarily. For the Celts, three was a sacred number. The blows may have represented the three different forms of the goddess to whom the sacrifice was being made.7

The hair reveals much about the ancient grooming habits of Celtic men. People in the distant past, just like us, combed and styled their hair. Clonycavan Man’s modest height, 5 feet 2 inches, set off speculation that he preferred to coif up his hair with gel to appear taller than he actually was. When archaeologists investigated the mysterious gel still contained in the bog body’s hair, they established that it was made of vegetable plant oil mixed with resin from pine trees found only in Spain and south-west France, suggesting strong evidence of Iron Age trade across western Europe. This discovery of Iron Age hair gel caused considerable interest

Clonycavan Man also had well-manicured nails. The healthy state of his fingertips and hands, and absence of bodily scars, suggest that he was not a man accustomed to carrying out manual labour. Instead, he was most likely from the upper echelons of society, a wealthier individual who enjoyed interactions with continental neighbours. Someone important had to be sacrificed for the desired results to occur.8 Perhaps Clonycavan Man was even a king.

After being subjected to all these examinations, Clonycavan Man’s body was impregnated with a water-soluble wax solution and freeze-dried. The drying process took approximately six weeks.9 He now forms part of a National Museum of Ireland exhibition, resting beside various materials connected with ancient rituals: weapons, jewellery, feasting utensils, wooden carvings, quern stones and butter deposits known as ‘bog butter’. Archaeologists speculate that these objects may have been associated with the inauguration of a new king.10 What is most striking, however, is the multitude of secrets which even half a preserved body, and specifically the head, can disclose about everyday life in ancient Ireland. A few strands of gelled-up hair reveal a wealth of information on ancient trading patterns and Ireland’s ancient interconnectedness with nearby European countries, but they also prompt our brains to imagine an ancient Celtic world now long lost to us.

THE RED-HAIRED IRISH

Although Clonycavan Man’s hair colour was probably dark, its preserved remnants give the impression that he had naturally red locks. This erroneous impression links to stereotypes of the Irish being a nation of redheads (or, more derogatorily, ‘gingers’). Leprechauns, for instance, are always depicted with red hair flowing from under their tall, oversized green hats.

Debates on this...