Assoc ProfessorMeriel McClatchie

Assoc. Prof. Meriel McClatchie's research is focused on the archaeology in Europe, with a particular interest in archaeobotany and food (from early prehistoric to early modern societies), prehistoric landscapes and settlements, and the promotion of sustainable farming practices in modern societies.

She welcomes enquiries from potential PhD students and post-doctoral researchers in these areas.

Research projects include:

1. CROPREVIVE: mapping underutilised crops in Ireland – past, present and future
https://www.ucd.ie/archaeology/research/croprevive/
The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates that 75% of crop diversity has been lost between 1900 and 2000. Such loss of biodiversity has serious implications for food security in the context of climate change and environmental degradation. Urgent action is required to diversify our crops and broaden genetic diversity in national contexts. Ireland has a deep and rich history of farming. Evidence from archaeological excavations indicates that Ireland’s first farmers began cultivating crops almost 6000 years ago. Although ancient Irish farmers cultivated a wide range of crop species and varieties, nowadays farming is focused on a narrow variety of crops. This has resulted in some crops being underutilised, despite their great potential in terms of being nutrient-dense, suited to European climates and environments, and viable for sustainable production in Ireland.

Focusing on three case-study crops – rye, emmer wheat and peas – CROPREVIVE will align findings on ancient practices (from archaeology and history) with current data from plant sciences to seek resilient crops adapted to sustainable practices, and to tackle environmental, economic and cultural barriers to increased production in a modern context. Extensive consultation with diverse Irish stakeholders will enable significant impact for the project findings. With a focus on agricultural sustainability, biodiversity and climate change, the project uses Ireland as a case-study to tackle broader global challenges.

2. FOODSEC: Food security in Bronze Age Ireland
https://www.ucd.ie/archaeology/research/foodsec/
Achieving food security is a key concern in modern societies but the challenge of ensuring that food is available and accessible stretches back thousands of years. Without food security, even the most complex societies in prehistoric Europe could have faltered. This project will pose the question: how did past societies in Ireland manage food security? FOODSEC will provide a new scientific basis to understand food security in the past by undertaking a comprehensive case study from Bronze Age Ireland. This period is perhaps best known for the introduction of metalworking, and the creation of complex and exquisite bronze and gold objects. But it was also a time of significantly increased agricultural production, which enabled the creation of a strong economic base. Little attention has been paid to the development of food surplus, food storage facilities and food security, however.

This project will tackle these issues by exploring the newly enlarged archaeological dataset relating to food remains (zooarchaeology and archaeobotany) and food storage facilities (containers, storage pits and above-ground structures) in Bronze Age Ireland. The archaeological evidence will be considered within the wider context of traditional food-security practices in Ireland by drawing upon folklife and folklore evidence. New experimental work and stable isotope analyses will be undertaken to test the capabilities of storage structures such as subterranean pits and to learn about the growing conditions of crops. This multi-strand approach will enable important new insights into food security practices in prehistoric Ireland, helping people reconnect with their past and understand how these societies dealt with the challenges of achieving food security.

3. FOODCULT: Food, Culture and Identity in Ireland, 1550-1650
http://foodcult.eu
She is a Project Partner for an ERC-funded project (Starter Grant awarded to PI Dr Susan Flavin, Trinity College Dublin). The project is exploring diet and food culture in 16th and 17th century Ireland, finding out what was on the dinner table before the arrival of the potato into this region. The five-year project brings together historians, archaeologists and scientists to investigate what was eaten, where, why and by whom, at a level never before attempted in Europe.
Assoc. Prof. McClatchie oversees development of an archaeological database in UCD to map dietary evidence across different regions and social contexts through collation and analysis of archaeobotanical, zooarchaeological and artefact data. She works closely with the wider project team -- including archaeologists, historians, isotope analysts and residue analysts -- to develop new understandings of food production, preparation and consumption.

4. DIVERSICROP: Harnessing the potential of underutilized crops to promote sustainable food production
https://diversicrop.eu/
Together with Dr Sonia Negrao, she developed an interdisciplinary, international research network to explore underutilized crops that are suited to European climates and were extensively cultivated in Europe’s past. The project was initially funded by a UCD Earth Institute Strategic priority support mechanism (https://www.ucd.ie/earth/whatwedo/strategicpriorities/currentprojects/) and is now funded by a COST Action (2023-2027).

5. Connecting foodways in Roman Britain and Iron Age Ireland
A project that is investigating shared food cultures in Roman Britain and Iron Age Ireland, based upon archaeobotanical assemblages from Ireland that have more in common with Romano-British assemblages than contemporary Irish Iron Age assemblages. This is a collaboration with Dr Charlene Murphy, who is an expert in crops and diet in the Roman World, and will enable the project to situate ‘unusual’ results from Irish archaeobotanical assemblages within the context of the wider Roman Mediterranean Ancient world.

6. Late prehistoric farming in southern Britain: a comparative study of archaeobotanical data from five Iron Age sites
Funded by the Association for Environmental Archaeology Research Fund (2015), this project is investigating agricultural remains from several Iron Age excavations in Britain. Together with Dr Sue Colledge and Prof. Gordon Hillman (Institute of Archaeology, University College London), Assoc. Prof. McClatchie is completing work on plant remains assemblages that was begun by Hillman several decades ago.