What is recorded here

Hall Demesne is a dune field where a young adult male died before modern memory began, because his bones still lay buried when the sea took the sand above them. The boy was tall for his time, about 172cm, and his body carried marks of childhood hunger, fever, heavy work and poor teeth. He may have belonged to one of the nearby hut sites or cairn clusters, but the dunes kept that part unfinished. What is known is that the coast opened his grave, not a person.

In sand dunes on a small headland jutting into the N side of Donegal Bay. In August 2017 human bones were exposed in an eroding section of the dunes. The discovery was notified to An Garda Síochána, who established that the burial was ancient. They collected the bones and transferred them to the National Museum. Osteoarchaeological examination revealed that the bones are those of a young adult male, c. 172cm (5ft 6 inches) in height, aged between 16-20 years at time of death. Pathologies in the bones and teeth indicate that he suffered some nutritional deficiency and acute infection in early childhood. There was also evidence of stress to his spine, possibly as a result of heavy lifting and manual labour. Despite his young age, periodontal disease was already present on his teeth, as well as a heavy plaque load, suggesting a predominately carbohydrate diet (Buckley 2019). The exact form of the burial is uncertain: When discovered the bones were partly displaced, having eroded from the sand dune, there was no obvious trace of a grave structure and no artefacts were found. The date of the burial is as yet unknown. A possible midden (DG099-023----) is visible in section a few meters to E, and a hut site (DG099-020----) and cluster of cairns (DG099-021001---- to DG099-021006-) are located c. 90m to W in the same dune system. Compiled by: Jane O’Shaughnessy Date of upload: 28 November 2019

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