Revealing the Past 2023: Investigating the Northern Irish Bog Butter Assemblage

Karen O’Toole is discusses the commonly found, and relatively poorly understood bog butter in the Irish peatlands. The practice of bog butter deposition currently extends from the Early Bronze Age to the Post-Medieval period and, as a result, bog butter has the potential to tell us much about farming, dairying, and diet in the past. This talk focuses on the bog butter assemblage from Northern Ireland, an especially under-researched assemblage. It will explore its character, chronology, and distribution through time, with reference to the wider Irish assemblage. In particular, it discusses new dates from the Northern Irish assemblage and the results of recent organic residue analyses which have greatly enhanced our understanding of bog butter deposition on the island of Ireland.