County: Kilkenny Site name: JERPOINT WEST
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: —
Author: Mr. M. Ryan, Irish Antiquities Division, National Museum of Ireland
Site type: Linkardstown burial
Period/Dating: Neolithic (4000BC-2501 BC)
ITM: E 656601m, N 641428m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.521283, -7.165968
This site, which was not marked on the 0.S. maps of the area, was discovered when the landowner decided to tip the mound into a adjacent quarry in order to minimise the danger to his livestock. A mechanical excavator was employed for this purpose and roughly two thirds of the area of the site was severely damaged when a large polygonal cist was uncovered. This find was investigated first by Mr. A.B. Ó Riordain, (NMI) and subsequently planned by Mr. P Healy. The cist was polygonal in form the sidestones being doubled in some cases. Three, (perhaps four), capstones covered the burial. It contained a burned and an unburned burial, fragments of plain and decorated Neolithic vessels and a bone pin. The floor of the cist was roughly cobbled.
Excavation was decided upon to examine the context of the burial in the mound. The following points were established:-
1) That the cist was bedded into the old ground surface.
2) It was placed approximately centrally in a mound of complex construction.
3) The construction of the mound was as follows:—
(a) A core of boulders piled against the cist.
(b) A deposit of flat fairly regular stones each pitched upwards in the direction of the cist.
(c) A mantle of soil mixed with a high proportion of sod, in which, at intervals, occurred thin layers of flat stones carefully laid.
(d) The soil mound was delimited by three concentric arcs of fairly regular stone laminae resting on the old ground level, between these occurred a series of radially set stones.
4) The site was disturbed on the north and south by modern field boundaries
Additional finds included some bones of a child and a sherd of coarse pottery. These came from the spoil of the levelling operations, which had been piled on the site. The finds were kindly donated to the Museum by the landowner, Mr. Edward Follis of Jerpoint West.
