Stories from shadows on the soil. 

Our silent ancestors has been written to tell the story of our unknown ancestors, the silent and resilient people who inhabited the eastern and north-eastern areas of Ireland for many thousands of years. They left little writing, many of their stories and language are lost in time and we only have tantalising glimpses of what their lives might have been like.

Their story is told through the shadows they left in the soil; the burnt charcoal, cremated bone, seeds, plants and occasionally pottery and other simple belongings they left behind. Sometimes their very bodies were no more substantial than an outline in the earth, so thoroughly had their skeletons crumbled away.

These items were found in a series of archaeological excavations that were carried out in 2006 along the route of the Gas Networks Ireland pipeline, which was constructed along a corridor stretching from County Meath to County Antrim. The pipeline extends from south to north; the sites run like a tunnel through time coming forward from the Neolithic or Stone Age to the later medieval era; and they may be said to move, also, along a very slow curve of advancing technological knowledge in our society.