1946:000 - LISDUGGAN NORTH, Cork

Introduction
The discovery of two skeletons and two ‘pots’ in a quarry near Kanturk, Co. Cork, was reported to the NMI by Mr M.J. Bowman of Percival Street, Kanturk, Co. Cork, in June 1946. The burial had been uncovered about a month before while a quarry was being prepared for blasting. Mr Bowman wrote to the then Acting Keeper of Irish Antiquities, Dr Joseph Raftery. It is worth quoting from Mr Bowman’s letter, dated 21 June 1946:

During the work they found two skeletons and two ‘pots’. I went this evening to see the site but the skeletons had been removed and the urns broken. Mr Owen Bourke, Assolas, Kanturk, found three pieces of the urns. I enclose a rubbing of two of them. There was no ornamentation on the third piece.
I intend to go as soon as possible to see the workmen. I shall send you tomorrow some bones I brought from the site.

Dr Raftery, immediately recognising the similarity of the sherds to pottery that he had discovered at Linkardstown, Co. Carlow (J. Raftery 1944b), wrote to Mr Bowman to inform him of the importance of the discovery and requested further details. Unfortunately, although the bones were forwarded to the Museum, Mr Bowman was unable to forward the pottery and the additional information on the site, as he had intended, owing to ill health. The site and the finds from it remained unrecorded and uninvestigated. By chance, one of us (MC), in the course of archival work in the Irish Antiquities Division, rediscovered the file on this important discovery.
The reference in Mr Bowman’s letter to Mr Owen Bourke of Assolas suggested that the present occupants of Assolas House might be able to help in finding the vital sherds. Amazingly, Mr Hugh Bourke, son of Owen Bourke, was able to locate the sherds in February 1984 and immediately arranged for the pottery, consisting of four decorated sherds from the same vessel, to be sent to the Museum for examination and comparison with Mr Bowman’s rubbings. Two of the sherds matched exactly. Mr Bourke remembered the discovery and his father’s involvement with it and was able to identify the site in the townland of Lisduggan North. It was also possible to locate in the NMI the small quantity of human bones from the site sent to Dr Raftery in 1946. These were later identified as an adult male (1985:141).
Location (Fig. 2.1)
Unfortunately very little is known of the site. It is located in the townland of Lisduggan North, at approximately 91m OD, overlooking the Awbeg River in an area which has been quarried for limestone for a long time.2 It consists of a limestone cliff, now completely overgrown. Two visits have failed to locate any trace of the original burial site. This may be due to the blasting of the site. In any case, in its present condition, the extent of vegetation cover makes a thorough examination of the cliff face impossible. There is no information available to indicate the depth at which the discovery was made. It is not known how the burial was protected, or the disposition of the two skeletons or of the vessel (or vessels). It is unlikely that a cist could have been constructed in an area where the bedrock lay very close to the surface. It is far more likely that a natural feature such as a cavity in the rock was utilised in the same way as at the County Limerick sites such as Rockbarton (Cahirguillamore; Hunt 1967), Annagh (Ó Floinn 1992a and below) or Killuragh (Woodman, forthcoming). It is unfortunate that details on these points are not available. Whatever the exact circumstances of the burial may have been, it is clear that two inhumations accompanied by a round-based, closed-mouth, shouldered vessel of Neolithic type and closely related to those discussed by Herity (1982, 294–302) were recovered from a site in north Cork, thus extending the known distribution and marking the most southerly extent of this type of pottery.

Pottery (Fig. 2.2)
Shouldered vessel 1985:40
Two vessels are reported to have been found with two skeletons. Four sherds, all bearing decoration and from the same vessel, are extant. An undecorated sherd is also mentioned in the correspondence but so far it has not been possible to locate it. It is suggested that this sherd must have come from the second vessel, which may have been plain. Undecorated vessels are sometimes found with the highly decorated pottery which is common to these burials, e.g. Annagh, Co. Limerick (this volume, pp 17–47). Three of the four remaining sherds can be reassembled and it is possible to give a reasonably detailed description of the vessel and its decorative scheme. The ware is fairly fine, well baked and finished. The exterior is grey-brown in colour, the interior a light brown. Fairly large quartz grits are present and the whole surface is flecked with mica (see report below).
The sherds form part of a round-based, closed-mouth, shouldered vessel with all-over decoration. Two rounded bosses are also present. Three sherds form part of the body of the pot below the bosses. The fourth sherd represents a fragment of the pot above, including the bosses, the shoulder and a small portion of the neck. It has been broken off at the point where the neck joined the shoulder.
The only element of the decoration of the shoulder that can now be determined is a very slight raised line running circumferentially. The shoulder is marked by a rounded moulding. Four grooves run horizontally; three are interrupted by a rounded boss. The uppermost raised line is scored by oblique strokes. The decoration on the body of the pot consists of panels of curved grooves separated from one another by stabbed lines. The surviving boss is also surrounded by curved grooves. It is separated from the main surviving panel of grooving by a double curved row of irregular stabbed lines. As the grooved area rises towards the upper part of the vessel it is bordered by two horizontal grooves. The

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