Cormac Mcsparron

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Verified

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• Phd
• Research Fellow in Archaeology at Queen's University Belfast

Unlike other social sciences, the archaeological discipline has been lacking a theoretical framework to discuss the mechanism of migration. Traditionally, patterns of population movements were denoted from material culture and interpreted within the context of ethnicity and the diffusion of ideas without considering underlying processes and incenti...

Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland describes and analyses the increasing complexity of later Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age burial in Ireland, using burial complexity as a proxy for increasing social complexity, and as a tool for examining social structure. The book commences with a discussion of theoretical ap...

The peopling of the Americas and human interaction with the Pleistocene megafauna in South America remain hotly debated. The Santa Elina rock shelter in Central Brazil shows evidence of successive human settlements from around the last glacial maximum (LGM) to the Early Holocene. Two Pleistocene archaeological layers include rich lithic industry as...

Examinations of atypical burials can give nuance to the results of larger statistical studies which, by definition, look more at typical practice, and focus more on structure, at the expense of agency. This paper examines six unusual burials of children of the single burial tradition of the Irish later Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age. In some cas...

Background: Robust methods to track pathogens support public health surveillance. Both wastewater (WW) and individual whole genome sequencing (WGS) are used to assess viral variant diversity and spread. However, their relative performance and the information provided by each approach have not been sufficiently quantified. Therefore, we conducted a...

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) causes severe infections in infants, immunocompromised or elderly individuals resulting in annual epidemics of respiratory disease. Currently, limited clinical surveillance and the lack of predictable seasonal dynamics limits the public health response. Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has recently been used glo...

The decline, and then disappearance, of domestic potting in Late Bronze Age and Iron Age Ireland has been described as "inconceivable" and a "conundrum" by Barry Raftery (1995). There seems no practical or technological reason for the abandonment of this most useful artefact type. What is more, when domestic pottery is finally reintroduced to Irela...

A sharp increase in the number of so-called hillforts in many parts of Late Bronze Age Europe has usually been considered a key indicator of rising levels of intergroup violence during the final centuries of the second millennium BC. With over a hundred Late Bronze Age hillforts, Ireland provides an excellent case-study region to test this hypothes...

Background: Influenza A viruses (IAV) are significant pathogens of humans and other animals. Although endemic in humans and birds, novel IAV strains can emerge, jump species, and cause epidemics, like the latest variant of H5N1. Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has very recently been shown to detect human IAV but whether it can detect avian-orig...

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) causes severe infections in infants, immunocompromised or elderly individuals resulting in annual epidemics of respiratory disease. Currently, limited clinical RSV surveillance and the lack of predictable RSV seasonal dynamics and limits the public health response. Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has the capaci...

The peopling of the Americas and human interaction with the Pleistocene megafauna in South America remain hotly debated. The Santa Elina rock shelter in Central Brazil shows evidence of successive human settlements from around the last glacial maximum (LGM) to the Early Holocene. Two Pleisto-cene archaeological layers include rich lithic industry a...

The peopling of the Americas and human interaction with the Pleistocene megafauna in South America remain hotly debated. The Santa Elina rock shelter in Central Brazil shows evidence of successive human settlements from around the last glacial maximum (LGM) to the Early Holocene. Two Pleistocene archaeological layers include rich lithic industry as...

Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has the capacity to provide effective surveillance of entire communities by determining levels of health-associated biomarkers, viruses, and bacteria. WBE has been used globally as a key metric in determining prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in the community. However, the application of WBE for the surveillance of other...

As of 8 July 2022, the World Health Organization (WHO) have reported 1010 probable cases of acute hepatitis of unknown aetiology in children worldwide, including approximately 250 cases in the United Kingdom (UK). Clinical presentations have often been severe, with liver transplantation a frequent clinical outcome. Human adenovirus F41 (HAdV-F41) h...

The COVID-19 pandemic has put unprecedented pressure on public health resources around the world. From adversity, opportunities have arisen to measure the state and dynamics of human disease at a scale not seen before. In the United Kingdom, the evidence that wastewater could be used to monitor the SARS-CoV-2 virus prompted the development of Natio...

The COVID-19 pandemic has put unprecedented pressure on public health resources around the world. From adversity, opportunities have arisen to measure the state and dynamics of human disease at a scale not seen before. In the United Kingdom, the evidence that wastewater could be used to monitor the SARS-CoV-2 virus prompted the development of Natio...

Les sites de hauteur fortifiés (« hillforts » en anglais), malgré leur nombre considérable – plus de 100 sites connus en Irlande – continuent d’être l’un des types de site le plus mal compris de la préhistoire récente irlandaise, et alors que la recherche de ces dernières années a été capable de répondre à un certain nombre de problèmes relatifs à...

The COVID-19 pandemic has put unprecedented pressure on public health resources around the world. From adversity, opportunities have arisen to measure the state and dynamics of human disease at a scale not seen before. Early in the COVID-19 epidemic, scientists and engineers demonstrated the use of wastew-ater as a medium by which the virus could b...

Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland describes and analyses the increasing complexity of later Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age burial in Ireland, using burial complexity as a proxy for increasing social complexity, and as a tool for examining social structure. The book commences with a discussion of theoretical ap...

Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland describes and analyses the increasing complexity of later Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age burial in Ireland, using burial complexity as a proxy for increasing social complexity, and as a tool for examining social structure. The book commences with a discussion of theoretical ap...

Excavations at the extension to the Abbey Lane Theatre in the centre of Armagh city in 2010 uncovered a series of early medieval pits and gullies revealing episodes of occupation and industry dating from perhaps as early as the 6th century to the 10th or 11th century AD.

The Single Burial Tradition is the name given to a set of burial practices found in Ireland from the later Chalcolithic Period through the Early Bronze Age. The tradition commenced in the decades after 2200BC and continued until about 1600BC. During this time there was significant evolution in burial practice. The earliest burials of this tradition...

Journal : EMANIA 25 (2020) http://www.navan-research-group.org/emania.html

Report on excavations at the Dorsey, a kidney shaped Iron Age enclosure measuring 1.8 by 0.4km in size, where oak palisades were found flanking a modern road running through the monument and believed to mark the line of an ancient road.

Cite as: Brandherm, D., McSparron, C., Boutoille, L., Kahlert, T. & Bonsall, J. 2018. ‘Prehistoric hilltop settlement in the west of Ireland’. PAST - The Newsletter of the Prehistoric Society 89 (2018), pp1-3.

Cite as: Brandherm, D., McSparron, C., Kahlert, T. & Bonsall, J. 2018. ‘Topographical and Geophysical Survey at Knocknashee, Co. Sligo – Results from the 2016 Campaign’. Emania 24 (2018), pp81-86. In the summer of 2016 a series of surveys were carried out of the summit of Knocknashee Hill, Co. Sligo. A topographical survey of the entire summit pla...

Much recent scholarship has been critical of the concept of a Dál Riatic migration to, or colonisation of, Argyll. Scepticism of the accuracy of the early medieval accounts of this population movement, arguing that these are late amendments to early sources, coupled with an apparent lack of archaeological evidence for such a migration have led to i...

Medieval Ulster Coarse Pottery has been recognised by archaeologists—using various names, such as Crannog Ware and Everted Rim Ware—for more than a century. Despite this long history of study, little was known about this ceramic tradition, in part because, although there had been excavation-specific examinations of vessels and some attempt to exami...

Much recent scholarship has been critical of the concept of a Dal Riatic migration to, or colonisation of, Argyll. Scepticism of the accuracy of the early medieval accounts of this population movement, arguing that these are late amendments to early sources, coupled with an apparent lack of archaeological evidence for such a migration have led to i...

Excavations at a collapsing mound at Drumadoon, Co. Antrim revealed a rath and souterrain displaying two distinct phases of Early Christian occupation, which was later re-worked and re-occupied as a motte, probably in the latter half of the thirteenth century. The site was enclosed by a bank, without a ditch, and had an eastern entrance. The bank w...

An account of three rescue excavations carried out at Enagh, Co Derry, in 1998. A scatter of Bronze Age pits and post-holes was uncovered at Site 1, a Neolithic house at Site 2 and a possible Neolithic hut at Site 3.