Karen O'Toole

I am a PhD student in the School of Archaeology, University College Dublin (UCD), Ireland funded by the Irish Research Council’s Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship. My PhD research is focused on bog butter and its deposition in the peatlands of Ireland. I aim to explore this phenomenon by systematically quantifying, characterising, dating, locating, and analysing Irish bog butter using a wide-ranging and multidisciplinary approach to understand its past chronology, distribution and purpose in order provide a deeper understanding of the story behind archaeological bog butter. The project contains an intensive phase of archival research, the construction of a dedicated bog butter database, geospatial analyses using GIS software, organic residue analysis, and radiocarbon dating. To get in touch or find out more visit: https://www.ucd.ie/archaeology/research/phd/karen_otoole/.