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Andrew Gault

@andrewgault.bsky.social
267 followers 302 following 120 posts

Archaeologist. Hill lover. Should be at my allotment. Senior Inspector of Historic Monuments, working mostly in development management. My views etc.

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Reposted by Andrew Gault
Antiquity Journal @antiquity.ac.uk · 08/07/2026
At Haughey's Fort, they identified over 200 possible wooden domestic structures, indicating it was a dense and structured settlement far exceeding what would be expected of a typical hillfort. Alongside these were several large, circular buildings, likely communal spaces 6/12
Illustration interpreting magnetic gradiometry data, showing a series of concentric circular ditches containing many circles, likely wooden structures.
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Reposted by Andrew Gault
Antiquity Journal @antiquity.ac.uk · 08/07/2026
NEW Best known as the mythological capital of Ulster, Navan Fort was one of the five ancient capitals of Ireland. New research finds the landscape's significance stretches all the way back to the Bronze Age, indicating it was a major prehistoric centre. #AntiquityThread 1/12 🧵 🏺 #Archaeology
Aerial view of a green landscape, annotated with the locations of three Bronze Age features no longer visible (Haughey's Fort, The King's Stables & Tray Bog).
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Andrew Gault @andrewgault.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
Was up on Cavehill this afternoon, in this pic standing on the Bronze Age summit cairn and looking towards McArt's Fort and Belfast beyond. Lovely day for it.
A blue sky day on Cavehill summit, looking over a trail through heather towards McArt's Fort, with Belfast Lough and the city docks in the distance.
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Andrew Gault @andrewgault.bsky.social · 14/03/2026
Recently. Mostly running and gardening.
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Andrew Gault @andrewgault.bsky.social · 24/12/2025
He sees you when you're sleeping...
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Andrew Gault @andrewgault.bsky.social · 24/12/2025
As if the workhouse circumstances weren't bad enough, add in some strong #AdventHorror vibes for good measure. Happy Christmas! 🎅🎄
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Reposted by Andrew Gault
James O’Driscoll @jodarchaeology.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
Hot off the press, our new paper on the incredible Late Bronze Age nucleated settlement at Brusselstown Ring hillfort, Co. Wicklow, Ireland is freely available to read (doi.org/10.15184/aqy...). @qubelfastofficial.bsky.social @uofglasgow.bsky.social @antiquity.ac.uk
doi.org
Brusselstown Ring: a nucleated settlement agglomeration in prehistoric Ireland | Antiquity | Cambridge Core
Brusselstown Ring: a nucleated settlement agglomeration in prehistoric Ireland
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Reposted by Andrew Gault
Harry Fokkens @harryfokkens.bsky.social · 17/11/2025
What stunning views from these Irish passage graves @Carrowkeel
Carrowkeel megalithic monuments and landscape
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Reposted by Andrew Gault
Patrick Gleeson @papgleeson.bsky.social · 17/11/2025
Grand first day digging the Dane’s Cast in Co Down! Iron Age or Medieval linear earthwork running along the Newry Valley. We’ll know soon enough. Some nice postholes, a palisade slot and two big ditches and banks
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Andrew Gault @andrewgault.bsky.social · 13/11/2025
I should have posted this on Tuesday I suppose. The Knockagh monument, war memorial for County Antrim. Familiar backdrop round these parts and somewhere I've been running to a bit recently.
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Andrew Gault @andrewgault.bsky.social · 12/09/2025
A problem everywhere I expect; we had a particular rash of sites being damaged during COVID lockdown period, interestingly
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Andrew Gault @andrewgault.bsky.social · 12/09/2025
*by which I mean inauguration site features
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Andrew Gault @andrewgault.bsky.social · 12/09/2025
Egregious damage to the original entrance, which is effectively lost, and the trench excavated through the interior, which you can see in aerial footage. Thankfully the inaugural features of the site were unaffected I think.
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Andrew Gault @andrewgault.bsky.social · 12/09/2025
I visited this site shortly after the damage was reported. Shocking indeed. Good to see this outcome, but that damage cannot be undone. BBC News - Damage to historic site 'a significant loss to society' www.bbc.com/news/article...
bbc.com
Dunmull Hillfort: Damage to historic site is 'a significant loss to society'
Dr Paul Logue, from the Department for Communities, said damage to a hillfort is "one of the very worst" he's seen.
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Reposted by Andrew Gault
UCD School of Archaeology, Dublin @ucdarchaeology.bsky.social · 19/08/2025
Research shows that pig remains at Newgrange result from midwinter feasting conducted c.2600-2450 BC, centuries after the tomb had been closed off. Most of pigs slaughtered during mid-winter solstice after being fattened on acorns in oak forests in the preceding months. 2/3
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Andrew Gault @andrewgault.bsky.social · 19/08/2025
Recently, midway water-stop at Ben Crom reservoir during the Mourne Seven Sevens. Turned out to be a great day.
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Andrew Gault @andrewgault.bsky.social · 19/08/2025
Still, there's plenty to be cheered by too 😆
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Andrew Gault @andrewgault.bsky.social · 19/08/2025
The gardener's curse is constantly seeing the problems, the pests, the things that could be better. You can't sit still for five minutes without seeing a job to do. Year 4 in my new garden sees vine weevils, slug tsunamis, malnourished soil, totrix moths and possibly box moth caterpillars ☠️ 🐛 🪲
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Reposted by Andrew Gault
Nigel Monaghan @nigelmonaghan-nh.bsky.social · 08/08/2025
Stunning images by Julian Friers of extinct and lost Irish animals from #Megaloceros, #Mammoth, to Great Auk, with the full story of Ireland’s ice age animals and human impacts on the fauna by Mike Simms. Published by National Museums Northern Ireland August 2025 ISBN 0-900761-69-5
Book cover with painting of giant ice age deer Megaloceros
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Andrew Gault @andrewgault.bsky.social · 16/07/2025
The most picturesque house in the Mournes, seen at the end of a loop of the Annalong Valley today. And a horse, who I caught napping.
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Andrew Gault @andrewgault.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
Similarly, where the hell are fair skinned gingers like me evolved for, in a pre sunscreen world? I can only assume beneath trees and mud covered. Sounds good tbh.
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Andrew Gault @andrewgault.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
In my youth my mother once mixed up the calamine lotion with milk of magnesia. I had an upset stomach... It wasn't good.
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Reposted by Andrew Gault
Nina Willburger @drnwillburger.bsky.social · 05/07/2025
A more than 5,550-year-old well-preserved #Neolithic knife. The blade is crafted from flint and secured in a wooden handle using birch tar. Furthermore, the handle features a hole, intended for attaching a cord. From the pile dwelling settlement...🧵 1/2 📷 me 🏺 #archaeology
A flint knife featuring a curved stone blade secured into a wooden handle using black birch tar adhesive. The dark handle has a small perforation at one end. The tool is displayed on a neutral surface, showing the craftsmanship and natural materials used.
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Andrew Gault @andrewgault.bsky.social · 03/07/2025
It's a remote exposed upland area and on a different day I could have been in diffs as I was basically in shorts and a long sleeve top. Food for thought to never take the familiar short upland runs lightly. There's a 3 mile stretch of trail where I'll now forever be looking for that key 🫣😆
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Andrew Gault @andrewgault.bsky.social · 03/07/2025
Trail running woe in the Antrim Hills yesterday. At the furthest point from my car just as I was turning to head back I realised my key was gone. Small hole in the pocket 🤦 Luckily I met a chap (the only other person!) who let me use his phone and I was able to get my spare key. Lessons learned 🙌
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James Wright @jpwarchaeology.bsky.social · 30/06/2025
Surveying a house in Leicestershire. Its all about the brickwork. Early 18thC bricks w/ angled skintlings & mid-19thC bricks w/ horizontal skintlings. Skintlings are the creases where the bricks were stacked in the kiln. This changes from angled to horizontal in early 19thC.
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Reposted by Andrew Gault
Phil Watson @frenchmegaliths.bsky.social · 24/06/2025
The capstone covering the 10m long chamber of the dolmen angevin of Briande (aka Pierre du Marais) in Arçay (Vienne) has broken in two but still rests rather dramatically on 7 surviving orthostats. #TombTuesday. Card by Dando-Berry c.1905.
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Andrew Gault @andrewgault.bsky.social · 24/06/2025
Liam sent this to me at dawn on the Solstice 🙂
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Reposted by Andrew Gault
(Dr) Rena Maguire @justrena.bsky.social · 21/06/2025
Millin Bay is a kinda cool place as nobody's really sure what's going on with it, apart from.maybe the wondrous Liam McQuillan and Lisa White who are currently working on it. It is one of the highly strange sites across Ireland, and has more than a whiff of @hookland.bsky.social about it. A thread
A small grassy cairn and a man, Liam McQuillan, running around with carrier bags of demonstration slides !
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Reposted by Andrew Gault
Dr Susan Greaney @handle.invalid · 24/06/2025
Our alternative interpretations of the ‘king’ of Newgrange (a skull fragment from an individual who was born of incest) and his distant relations have been published! We argue for the importance of careful integration of aDNA results with detailed archaeological evidence. Such a great team effort!
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Reposted by Andrew Gault
Antiquity Journal @antiquity.ac.uk · 24/06/2025
Cover image from 'The ‘king’ of Newgrange? A critical analysis of a Neolithic petrous fragment from the passage tomb chamber' - Jessica Smyth et al. 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...
doi.org
The ‘king’ of Newgrange? A critical analysis of a Neolithic petrous fragment from the passage tomb chamber | Antiquity | Cambridge Core
The ‘king’ of Newgrange? A critical analysis of a Neolithic petrous fragment from the passage tomb chamber - Volume 99 Issue 405
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Andrew Gault @andrewgault.bsky.social · 10/06/2025
I can smell the permatrace from here
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Andrew Gault @andrewgault.bsky.social · 10/06/2025
Sorry (not sorry)
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Andrew Gault @andrewgault.bsky.social · 08/06/2025
Finally starting to feel myself again after completing the Mourne Way Marathon yesterday. It's the first marathon I've done, and to add to the type 2 fun it's a trail marathon on forest tracks, rough mountain trails and bog with >1100m elevation gain. With heavy rain showers and hail thrown in 😆
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Andrew Gault @andrewgault.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
Yeah, Valetta is Council of Europe, not EU
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Andrew Gault @andrewgault.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
Ratified by UK in 2000... I'm sure someone would have noticed if we'd withdrawn, right? Compliance is another matter of course 😆
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Reposted by Andrew Gault
Prof Nicki Whitehouse @fossilbeetle.bsky.social · 02/06/2025
Are you interested in re-wilding? We have a questionnaire on re-wilding and the historic environment open, and keen to hear from ecologists, land managers, and archaeological practitioners. Access the questionnaire here - uofg.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...
uofg.qualtrics.com
Qualtrics Survey | Qualtrics Experience Management
The most powerful, simple and trusted way to gather experience data. Start your journey to experience management and try a free account today.
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Andrew Gault @andrewgault.bsky.social · 27/05/2025
He also supervises at the allotment
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Andrew Gault @andrewgault.bsky.social · 27/05/2025
You may not realise it, but somewhere, quietly, a miniature schnauzer is watching you.
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Andrew Gault @andrewgault.bsky.social · 21/05/2025
Ballylesson, south of Belfast and Edenderry, in the sunshine today. Impressive landscape, not far from the Giant's Ring.
A rolling landscape of ploughed fields fresh sown with potato ridges, drumlins, a historic house in a clump of trees in the distance, set against blue sky on a sunny day.
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Andrew Gault @andrewgault.bsky.social · 21/05/2025
Archaeology is built heritage. I keep seeing the term being applied to refer only to historic buildings, as if archaeological heritage were a separate thing. It isn't. It constitutes the material remains of human cultures and agency, distinct for example from natural heritage.
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Andrew Gault @andrewgault.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
Khal Drogo?
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Andrew Gault @andrewgault.bsky.social · 18/05/2025
Factor 50 ftw 😆
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Andrew Gault @andrewgault.bsky.social · 18/05/2025
Stunning day in the central Mournes ☀️
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Andrew Gault @andrewgault.bsky.social · 18/05/2025
Peak long run today in the sunny Mournes, now tapering to the Mourne Way Marathon in early June. What a day for it!
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Andrew Gault @andrewgault.bsky.social · 09/05/2025
Loving evening walks in our local woods these days
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Andrew Gault @andrewgault.bsky.social · 09/05/2025
Stretched after getting out of bed this morning and pulled something in my shoulder. Forties innit?
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Andrew Gault @andrewgault.bsky.social · 03/05/2025
Apple blossom and first plantings at the allotment. Potatoes are up and enjoying the sunshine. It's getting colder though, and that breeze! 🥶
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Andrew Gault @andrewgault.bsky.social · 26/04/2025
kids in the woods listening to Gish on a Saturday night 🤷🏼‍♂️
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Andrew Gault @andrewgault.bsky.social · 22/04/2025
What did the little flutter mouse do to you Ireland??
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