1971:041 - SEACASH, Antrim

The excavations took place during June, July and August; more than half the interior was stripped and a 17m length of ditch around the entrance causeway (located largely by chance) was emptied. The ditch averaged 4m wide and was 1m 70cm to 2m deep with a broad flat bottom (necessitated by hard underlying rock). The subsoil was impermeable with the result that peat had accumulated in the waterlogged ditch bottom, preserving numerous animal bones, the leather upper of a shoe, thongs, many fragments of a lathe-turned wooden bowl, two large hoops and a stave (apparently from a vat 90cm in diameter) and miscellaneous other pieces of worked wood. The entrance causeway proved to be a web of undug clay 2.5m wide, bisected laterally by a drain 1.1m deep packed with round stones to facilitate drainage along the ditch which here sloped at right angles to the causeway. Two large postholes packed with stones presumably marked the position of a gate just within the causeway.

Bulldozing of the interior in some places had removed all features down to the surface of the natural clay, elsewhere the packing stones of postholes and other features were found to have protruded through the turf before excavation, however, sufficient remained to show that the site was of one main structural phase. A ‘habitation area’ 8m x 10m delimited by a slight discontinuous gully, a scarp 5cm to 10cm high and an arc of stones lay slightly off-centre (nearer the entrance causeway). The flat interior of the oval area contained slight pits and hollows, some perhaps postholes. It is difficult to suggest from the scant remains recovered what precise type of structure occupied the spot. Where not damaged by bulldozing the space to the upper side, between dwelling and estimated edge of bank, was covered by fine close-set pebble paving. A V-sectioned gully, 1m wide and 70cm deep, arced around the upper side of the dwelling and ran off to debouche into the ditch just to the low side of the entrance causeway. A haphazard arrangement of 8 postholes up to 80cm deep indicated the former existence of a small out office built against the bank away from the central dwelling.

Apart from some ‘souterrain ware’ sherds and a spindle whorl found in the features within the ‘dwelling area’ all the finds came from mixed up occupation soil 10-20cm deep overlying the surrounding cobbles. These included an iron ringed pin; 3 bronze pins; lignite bracelet fragments; a fragment of a blue-glass bracelet with 3 parallel white cables and white dots; two beads, one of green and yellow paste in a ‘herring-bone’ pattern; many sherds of souterrain ware of plain and cordoned varieties. Six samples, including a peat section from the ditch are being processed in the Palacoecology Laboratory, Queen’s University. Some of the pieces of worked wood may be large enough to make dendrochronological examination worthwhile.