County: Derry Site name: BALLYBRIEST td. (Carnanbane)
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: —
Author: Mr A.M. ApSimon, Department of Archaeology, University of Southampton
Site type: Megalithic tomb - court tomb
Period/Dating: Neolithic (4000BC-2501 BC)
ITM: E 676144m, N 888610m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.739759, -6.817528
The purpose of the excavations at this and at the following site, undertaken in collaboration with Prof. E.E. Evans, with the aid of a grant from the Institute of Irish Studies, Q.U.B was to obtain charcoal samples for dating and to fit the monuments into the archaeological, ecological and chronological sequences established by work at Ballynagilly and Beaghmore.
At Carnanbane a test cutting was made south of the eastern chamber. The block layer reported by Evans* was located beneath undisturbed cairn stones and large charcoal samples taken for radio-carbon dating, A quantity of broken Early Neolithic pottery was also found. The investigation lends support to Evans' conclusion that the construction of the cairn followed soon after the deposition of the block layer.
* Evans, E.E.; Proc. Roy. Irish Acad., 45 c (1939) pp. 1-12
