Alison Kyle
BA (Hons) Archaeology, Queen’s University of Belfast, 2005
MA Ceramic and Lithic Analysis for Archaeologists, University of Southampton, 2007(AHRC supported)
PhD Candidate (AHRC supported)
Room 322, Gregory Building, Lilybank Gardens, Glasgow, G12 8QQ
Telephone: +44 (0) 141 330 3925
Email: a.kyle.1@research.gla.ac.uk
http://glasgow.academia.edu/AlisonKyle
Research Title
Consuming Technologies: Regionality of Culinary Technologies, Sensory Experience and Identity in Early Medieval Ireland and Western Britain
Key Words
Material Culture, Culinary Technology, Ceramic vs Aceramic Regions, Regionality, Habitus, Cultural Reproduction, Gender
Research Abstract
This research considers how the technologies we actively chose to consume, through shaping our sensory experiences, contribute towards the development and maintenance of regional identities.
Sensory experience is arguably at its greatest during the consumption of a meal. While we can take pleasure from our favourite foods, we can equally experience disgust at the flavour, texture or smell of a particular meal, or physical pain if consumed when too hot. Our bodily experience of food – both in terms of the preparation and consumption of a meal - is reliant upon the technologies employed in their preparation.
During the early medieval period the use of ceramic cooking pots throughout Ireland and western Britain was highly regional. Those areas which do not appear to have used ceramic cooking pots have generally been dismissed as having used ‘organic alternatives’. However, it is obvious that such vessels could not have been used in the same manner as their ceramic cooking pot equivalent – a wooden or leather vessel cannot be placed directly in the fire in the manner of a ceramic vessel. Therefore, during the preparation of a meal, regional differences in culinary technology clearly evoked different behavioural practices and bodily experiences in terms of sight, sound, touch, taste and smell. Such experiences would have been central to the formation, maintenance, expression and understanding of regional identities.
By comparing the technologies used in the production, preparation and consumption of food across the study area, this paper will consider the regional variations in experience which must have existed, the potential for such differences to evoke the social emotions in the context of inter-regional movement, and the influence of colonial agents on both technology and experience.
This research is supported by an Arts and Humanities Research Council doctoral grant, an Arts and Humanities Research Council Travel Grant and the MPRG John Hurst Travel Fund.
Supervisor
Conference Papers
Kyle, A. 2011. Souterrain Ware: petrology, provenance and production. Institute of Archaeologists of Ireland Spring Conference, Dublin.
Kyle, A. 2011. More than just a quick fix?: repair holes on early medieval Souterrain Ware. Mad About Pots seminar series, University of Southampton.
Kyle, A. 2011. Techniques in transition: a consideration of foodways and identity in the context of the aceramic-ceramic transition in Wales. Stoking the Kiln, National Museum of Wales, Cardiff.
Kyle, A. 2010. More than just a quick fix?: repair holes on early medieval Souterrain Ware. Presented at the Theoretical Archaeology Group conference 2010, University of Bristol.
Kyle, A. 2010. The significance of repair holes on early medieval Souterrain Ware. Presented at the Scottish Theoretical Archaeology Group Conference 2010, University of Glasgow.
Kyle, A. 2010. ‘Resistance is futile’?: ceramic regionality and the question of choice. Early Medieval Archaeology Student Symposium 2010, Dublin.
Kyle, A. 2009. Kilnacranna : a case study of early medieval material culture. Presented at the National Roads Authority ‘Archaeological Discoveries on the M7 Nenagh - Limerick Motorway - Public Seminar’, Nenagh, Co. Limerick.
Stewart, K., Kyle, A., and Tourunen, A. 2008. Excavating a meal: a multidisciplinary approach to early medieval food economy. Presented at the National Roads Authority seminar ‘Dining and Dwelling’, Dublin.
Kyle, A. 2008. Souterrain Ware: ceramic petrology in an Irish context. Presented at the Association of the Young Archaeologists of Ireland annual conference, Queen’s University, Belfast.
Kyle, A. 2006. Artefacts from Ringforts. Presented to undergraduates as part of their training programme for the 2006 Queen’s University student excavation module, Belfast.
Publications
Kyle, A. 2011. ‘Conference Review: Early Medieval Settlements in North-West Europe, AD400-1100’, Society for Medieval Archaeology Newsletter, Issue 45.
Kyle, A. 2010. ‘”Resistance is futile”?: ceramic regionality and the question of choice’, paper abstract in Boyd, R., Doyle, M., and Greene, S. (eds). EMASS 2010: Proceedings and Review. The Early Medieval Archaeology Student Symposium, held at University College Dublin, May 2010. http://www.emass.group.shef.ac.uk/Publications.html
McKinstry, L., with contributions by Kyle, A., Tourunen, A., and Stewart, K. 2010. ‘The Excavation of a Ringfort and Souterrain at Kilcloghans, Co. Galway’, in Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society, Vol. 62, 6-18.
Kyle, A. 2010. Conference Review: ‘Ceramic Views of Scotland and northern England from the Neolithic to the 20th century: issues of method, practice and theory’. Medieval Pottery Research Group Newsletter 67.
Kyle, A., Stewart, K., and Tourunen, A., 2009. ‘Excavating a meal: a multidisciplinary approach to early medieval food economy.’, in Stanley, M., Danaher, E., and Eogan, J. (eds.) 2009. Dining and Dwelling: Archaeology and the National Roads Authority. Monograph Series No. 6.
Hamlin, A.E. 2008. The Archaeology of Early Christianity in the North of Ireland. Edited by Thomas Kerr with contributions from Janet Bell, Alison Kyle, Marion Meek and Brian Sloan. British Archaeological Reports (British Series) 460.
Nelis, E., Gormley, S., McSparron, C. and Kyle, A. 2007. Excavations at St Patrick’s Church, Armoy, Co. Antrim, CAF Data Structure Report: No. 44.
Jervis, B. and Kyle, A. (eds.) (in preparation) Make-do and Mend: the archaeologies of compromise? Conference Proceedings from the Theoretical Archaeology Group conference 2010.
Kyle, A. (forthcoming) ‘Analysis of the early medieval – medieval coarsewares from six cave sites along the north Antrim coast’, in Dowd, M. 2011. The Archaeology of the Caves of Ireland. Oxbow Books, Oxford.
Kyle, A. (forthcoming). ‘Ceramic Regionality and the Question of Choice’, poster abstract from Ceramic Views of Scotland and northern England from the Neolithic to the 20th century: issues of method, practice and theory. Available online.
Kyle, A. (forthcoming). ‘The metal finds’, in forthcoming National Roads Authority N17 Tuam Bypass monograph.
Kyle, A. (forthcoming). ‘The small finds’, in forthcoming National Roads Authority N17 Tuam Bypass monograph.
Kyle, A. (forthcoming). ‘The post-medieval pottery’, in forthcoming National Roads Authority N25 Waterford Bypass monograph.
Kyle, A. (in prep). ‘“Who is the potter, and who the pot?”: new evidence for native early medieval pottery production and use in southern Leinster’.
Kyle, A. (in prep). ‘Early Medieval thonging chisels?’.
Archaeological Experience
2010: Freelance pottery specialist, various projects.
Summer 2009: Pottery Specialist, Noviodunum Archaeology Project, Romania.
2007 – 2009: Finds Specialist, Headland Archaeology (Ireland) Ltd, Cork.
2005 – 2006: Fieldworker, Centre for Archaeological Fieldwork, Queen’s University of Belfast.
Other
Early Medieval Archaeology Student Symposium 2011 conference organiser, University of Glasgow.
Scottish Archaeological Forum 2011 conference subcommittee.
TAG 2010 conference session co-organiser: Make-do and Mend: the archaeologies of compromise?, University of Bristol.
Graduate Teaching
Level 1 Celtic Civilisation 1A
Level 1 Archaeology of Scotland
Memberships
Society of Antiquaries of Scotland
Society for Medieval Archaeology
Medieval Pottery Research Group
Prehistoric Ceramics Research Group
Scottish Archaeological Forum