The burnt mound or Fulacht Fia

slowburner

The bane of the professional archaeologist, the digger's scourge...the burnt mound or Fulacht Fia.
Wet, sticky, and usually devoid of finds, these enigmatic monuments have had a bad press. Is the bad press really justified?
Not in my opinion. I dislike digging in wet sticky conditions as much as the next person, but I am intrigued by the burnt mound.

Look at the subject this way: here we have a (mostly) prehistoric monument that took a significant amount of time and effort to construct, a monument that was in use for an extended period, and a monument that is capable of providing good preservation conditions for organic materials - especially timber. These monuments are also uniquely abundant in Ireland (6500+), and yet we treat them as if they do not matter.

The discovery of an unrecorded wedge tomb (there are 520 recorded examples) would almost certainly make headlines of some sort, but would the discovery of an unrecorded burnt mound? It's doubtful.
This distaste and disregard for the burnt mound is a curious phenomenon. When the degree of effort to make them is taken into account and coupled with the fact that these monuments served communities for lengthy periods; it seems strange that so little study has been undertaken.

Occasionally there are brief discussions about their function - theories on beer making, boiling meat, saunas, fabric dying are offered and none are yet proven.
The short statement is that we have an abundant monument that dates most commonly to the Bronze Age, we know very little about them, and we seem to have no desire to understand them fully.

Note: the term Fulacht Fia is no longer considered appropriate because it creates the impression that these are ancient cooking places. They may be, they might not be, or cooking might have been just one of the burnt mound's functions. We don't yet have sufficient evidence to say what they were for.


Distribution map of burnt mounds in Ireland. The linear distributions along the eastern half of the country are those that were excavated in the course of road improvement projects.

slowburner

For anyone who is not familiar with the burnt mound, here is a brief description.

Burnt mounds are generally identified by the unearthing of a substantial collection of burnt, fire reddened, or heat-shattered stones mixed with charcoal and ashy deposits. Sometimes the mound survives reasonably intact above ground, but more often than not, the upper levels of the mound have been ploughed over and spread across the surface of the land. In this case they are usually referred to as burnt spreads rather than mounds for the purposes of recording and identification.
The 'classic' burnt mound is usually crescent shaped.

Burnt mounds are typically thought of as definitively Bronze Age monuments (2500 - 500 BCE) although there are some examples that have been dated to the later Neolithic.
We are reasonably certain that their purpose was to heat water, but we do not know for certain what that warm water was used for.
The technology is quite straightforward: a pit was excavated in an area close to a water source and close to a source of clay. The pit (if not dug into clay) was often lined with pure clay to make it water tight. This is known as the trough.
Often the trough itself was lined with timbers - most commonly rough hewn or split oak boards but there are some examples of wattle or wicker structures too. In permanently wet conditions these can be well preserved.

The trough was either filled with water by gravity from an external water source or by being positioned below the water table.
The next step was heating the water. This was done by burning stones on a fire, transporting the hot stones to the trough, and tipping them into the water.
It is regularly stated that this technology could boil large quantities of water quickly and efficiently. However, a recent experimental reconstruction in UCD managed to only achieve a temperature maximum of 65ºC.

Obviously heated stones and cool water would lead to shattering, so when the stones became too fragmented, they were removed from the trough and thrown up in a heap behind. This activity leads to the formation of the characteristic crescent shape emanating from the trough.

There are a number of curious things about this technology not least of which is what were these people heating the water for? If (as was commonly thought) the water was for boiling meat, then we would expect to find some remains - animal bones for example. But they do not appear in the record.
Other theories include saunas/bathing, beer-making, and recent research (2012) has shown evidence for the presence of heavy metals at the base of a limited number of trough examples. The tentative conclusion drawn from this research was that that these heavy metals could be explained by fabric dying.

If we were to evaluate the importance of monuments to our ancestors based on the degree of effort involved, we could see the burnt mound as every bit as important as the wedge tomb.
I would argue that the burnt mound is perhaps more important: elaborate burial monuments were constructed to monumentalise the elevated dead.
Burnt mounds were constructed for the (everyday?) living.



Below is a shallow trough excavated by yours truly fairly recently. The base was lined with wooden boards but these had decomposed and only survived as shadows in the clay.
The stakeholes at one end of the trough were set at an angle such that the stakes probably oversailed the water. Concentrations of stakeholes like this do not occur at all troughs.

baaba maal

They are indeed fascinating. I really think of them as the proverbial "kitchen sink", with some or all of the functions above (and maybe others) being used at the same trough. A couple of points/questions:

Do the surface rocks used differ in their ability to transmit heat , e.g. does granite have a higher specific heat capacity than limestone or other types? Hence the different result from UCD- although some of the experiments filmed in the 70s or 80s definitely showed the hunk of lamb looking cooked- maybe 65 degrees is all they needed for whatever processes were going on. As the owner of a slowcooker, I can confirm that cooking anything at a low temperature, for long enough, is guaranteed to produce something vaguely edible.

I rather fancy that bonze age people would hop into the "bath" either after or with the lump of meat and/or whatever process was going on- we retain this characteristic behaviour in Ireland of not wasting hot water by our paranoia over the overuse of the immersion heater!

For people like me (is it an age thing? I'm 49), they will always be Fulacht Fia- I don't care how irrational a term it is!!

Great posts by the way.

Arsemageddon

To my mind burnt mounds have been overlooked because they are a relatively uncomplicated site type, and as alluded to by SB they are usually a pain in the arse to dig. That said, we find so many of them that they do keep us all in a job. I have worked on 120+ burnt mounds and only a handful have been interesting excavations. The pictures in the opening post looks to be one of the better examples.

Though the basic technology for heating large volumes of water can have multiple functions I have always tended to think that they were primarily used for bathing. Having a hot bath when you are used to bathing in a lake or a stream must have felt fantastic. Having tasted meat boiled in a Fulacht (bland to a bit yuck) I have always been a bit dubious about the cooking theory.

slowburner

Arsemageddon wrote: »

To my mind burnt mounds have been overlooked because they are a relatively uncomplicated site type, and as alluded to by SB they are usually a pain in the arse to dig. That said, we find so many of them that they do keep us all in a job. I have worked on 120+ burnt mounds and only a handful have been interesting excavations. The pictures in the opening post looks to be one of the better examples.

Though the basic technology for heating large volumes of water can have multiple functions I have always tended to think that they were primarily used for bathing. Having a hot bath when you are used to bathing in a lake or a stream must have felt fantastic. Having tasted meat boiled in a Fulacht (bland to a bit yuck) I have always been a bit dubious about the cooking theory.

Are they a relatively uncomplicated site because they are a pain to dig?
If they were given the attention and care they probably deserve, might they be more complex than is typically thought?
I think they might. I had the good fortune to dig another one very recently (the one that made me reflect on the monument) and it was done at an almost research pace. The complexity and quantity of finds were gobsmacking.
I have seen these monuments half sectioned with a digger. I have seen these monuments fully sectioned with a digger. As I am sure you have, but that is the thing: we are missing the data and the bigger picture, because we have preconceptions about what we are going to find.
This is a colossal mistake. It is an affront to both archaeology and our heritage. I often wonder where this disdain for the burnt mound came from. Is it a culture historic thing?

slowburner

As an aside.

I took home a soil sample from one of the fills of a very elaborate trough for my own personal interest.
After flotation of the organics and informal analysis of the content, I was surprised to find an abundance of blackberry seeds. This has two implications: a fill that was definitely focused on the bounty of Autumn, and a strong possibility that this was connected with hooch! More on this anon...
I have never liked the beer theory because it seemed too narrow, but it's amazing what some people will do for a jar.

Arsemageddon

slowburner wrote: »

Are they a relatively uncomplicated site because they are a pain to dig?

They are a pain in the arse to dig because they are often located in boggy, wet ground, large mounds with a high concentration of stone are hard physical work and the charcoal in the mound means you are covered in filth. More often than not there is no trace of a trough.

Its very hard to keep a crew motivated when all they are doing is whacking out mounds, they get repetitive strain injuries, bad backs and sustain damage to their joints. Absenteeism due to both exhaustion, injury and sheer boredom goes through the roof.

If they were given the attention and care they probably deserve, might they
be more complex than is typically thought?
I think they might. I had the good fortune to dig another one very recently (the one that made me reflect on the monument) and it was done at an almost research pace. The complexity and quantity of finds were gobsmacking.

There's a bit of arrogance in that statement. Do you really think the rest of us have all been misinterpreting them all along? I don't know any experienced professional archaeologist who looks forward to excavating them.

If you start finding worked wood or lithics then quite obviously you slow down and record them properly.

I have seen these monuments half sectioned with a digger. I have seen these monuments fully sectioned with a digger. As I am sure you have, but that is the thing: we are missing the data and the bigger picture, because we have preconceptions about what we are going to find.
This is a colossal mistake. It is an affront to both archaeology and our heritage.

I have never used a digger to excavate a burnt mound. More than once I have had to use a digger to move spoil excavated from the mound because the surrounding ground is so wet that it is impossible to use wheel barrows.

I have excavated 120+ burnt mounds from that number at most 10 have had wooden troughs or lithic working areas that made them interesting.

I often wonder where this disdain for the burnt mound came from. Is it a culture historic thing?

Dig enough of them and you'll understand why.

slowburner

Arsemageddon wrote: »

They are a pain in the arse to dig because they are often located in boggy, wet ground, large mounds with a high concentration of stone are hard physical work and the charcoal in the mound means you are covered in filth. More often than not there is no trace of a trough.

Its very hard to keep a crew motivated when all they are doing is whacking out mounds, they get repetitive strain injuries, bad backs and sustain damage to their joints. Absenteeism due to both exhaustion, injury and sheer boredom goes through the roof.



There's a bit of arrogance in that statement. Do you really think the rest of us have all been misinterpreting them all along? I don't know any experienced professional archaeologist who looks forward to excavating them.

If you start finding worked wood or lithics then quite obviously you slow down and record them properly.




I have never used a digger to excavate a burnt mound. More than once I have had to use a digger to move spoil excavated from the mound because the surrounding ground is so wet that it is impossible to use wheel barrows.

I have excavated 120+ burnt mounds from that number at most 10 have had wooden troughs or lithic working areas that made them interesting.



Dig enough of them and you'll understand why.

I am fully aware of the repetitive strain injuries; mattocks and stones are a poor mix. I am also fully aware of the immobile barrow - not the sole preserve of the burnt mound, as you well know.
I have dug considerably fewer than you, maybe 15, but I have dug enough to know how physically demanding they are. Digging a burnt mound is the hardest work there is, full stop.

I am not being arrogant. That is far from my intent. I am simply raising the question about how we approach burnt mounds.
The question is not the credentials of the director, his or her methodology, or the ability, or the motivation of the crew, it is a question of preconceived ideas about what we expect to find.

I suppose what I am trying to get at is this: if we approach sites with an attitude that is full of woe and tedium and despondency, then that is probably what we will get. Of course absenteeism will increase. If we approach sites with an open mind, who knows?
All I know is that I dug several under the usual conditions and the usual expectations. Bla bla burnt mound.
Then I dug one under different conditions and without imposed preconceptions. The quantity of finds was outstanding, and the quantity and quality of data approached the levels of a research dig.
It may have been an exceptional burnt mound, but it might also have been a combination of ethos and methodology.
Happy crews find stuff and record it well.

If we stop asking questions we become labourers.
Some companies like to sustain that idea.

Please don't feel that I am being arrogant or critical. That is a long way from my what I want to examine. My aim is to raise questions about the importance of these monuments, and raise questions about our approach to their excavation.

Arsemageddon

What do you suggest we do differently?

slowburner

Arsemageddon wrote: »

What do you suggest we do differently?

I don't want to suggest excavation methods - that is the site director's role as well as whoever agreed to the method statement.
All I am suggesting is that we approach burnt mounds as though they are monuments. I am not having a go at directors or diggers, I am simply raising questions about why we consider one monument class important, and another more or less irrelevant.

There are preconceptions that influence how the excavation is carried out. For example, the mound itself is expected to be sterile - it often is, but we won't know until we treat the mound without preconceived ideas of what may be there. In my opinion, preconceived ideas about what may or may not be present is a form of arrogance.
Sampling strategy is also often filled with preconceptions too. Few excavations take adequate samples from the floor of the trough, and yet I know from discussions with a respected environmental specialist that this is where the most useful palaeoenvironmental information is likely to be found.
The same specialist also mentions that samples from the burnt material are usually uninformative.

Yes burnt mounds are the most abundant monument in the country, but they are also one of the most enigmatic. We really do not know what they are all about.

...and I know only too well how horrible they are to dig. I once suffered blurred vision and nearly blacked out digging a particularly large one. I subsequently learned that I was concussed. Not many people realise that repeatedly hitting stones with a mattock sends shock waves up the spine that result in concussion.

Aelfric

I'm looking forward in a few weeks to starting digging my 28th-36th burnt mounds. Unlike most people, I'm quite fascinated by them. They're all as different as a fingerprint, and the cooking/boiling use case certainly can't be applied to every one.

Back in the 90s, i forget exactly when, there was a Burnt Mounds conference that led to the publication of Burnt Offerings. It's a great publication, but probably out of date given the plethora of BM sites exacted since then.

I'd like to see a Burnt Offerings 2 conference and publication.

Any takers?