County: Tyrone Site name: URNEY
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: —
Author: Mr. B, Scott, Department of Archaeology, Queen’s University Belfast
Site type: Ringfort - unclassified
Period/Dating: Iron Age (800 BC-AD 339)
ITM: E 630045m, N 890493m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.761536, -7.533182
A) The interior
In all, five sections were opened in the interior of the site, giving a total area of 80 sq. metres excavated. Apart from the features mentioned in the previous report, the interior excavations produced nothing.
B) Bank and ditch section
The bank and ditch section opened in 1970 was completed, and the sections obtained confirmed that the bank and ditch had only one phase of building.
i) The bank is made up of boulder clay with, near the base, a black layer containing a small amount of occupation debris. Three or four small lenses of the same material occurred just above the main layer, but these produced nothing apart from a few pieces of charcoal. It was from this black deposit that the only significant finds of the season were made, a large fragment of cinder from smelting operations, and a rim-sherd of coarse pottery. This layer also produced a large amount of charcoal, and a few tiny fragments of bone. At the interior end of the section, and covered by internal bank slip, a pit (93cm long, 31cm at the widest point, and 41cm deep) covered by two large flat slabs of slate, and filled with clean, sharp, angular stones and clean sand was found. As the pit contained absolutely nothing else, it is impossible to suggest a purpose for it. The stone footing for the inner stone revettment of the bank was uncovered under the interior bank slip.
ii) The fill of the ditch was made up of a layer of topsoil, underlain by a brown, sandy layer, which contained a large number of boulders -fallen from the original outer stone facing of the bank. The brown layer gradually merged into a grey, sandy silt which filled the rest of the ditch and was, apart from one piece of slag, totally sterile.
The ditch was over 2m deep, over 3m wide from the outer lip to the base of the bank, and had a U-shaped profile,
Conclusions
The ringfort would appear to have been built in one period, and never occupied. It is probable that the slack deposit found in the bank sections represents a pre-ringfort occupation layer, which was included in the bank during construction. As this forms the basal layer of the bank, it is likely that the construction of the fort was as follows:-
(i) The topsoil and subsoil of the area was scraped off, and deposited as the basal layer of the bank.
(ii) The ditch was excavated, and the boulder clay thrown up to form the bank.
Although it is likely that the occupation represented by the black deposit immediately preceded the building of the ringfort, and indeed represents the occupation debris of the builders, this cannot be positively proved. It is impossible to be confident about suggesting a date for the site until C-14 estimations have been carried out on the charcoal samples, but if the occupation layer and its contents are contemporaneous, then, on the slender evidence of the few fragments of pottery uncovered, one could tentatively suggest a date somewhere in the Iron Age for the construction of the site.
