County: Wicklow Site name: RATHGALL (Rath East td)
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: —
Author: B. Raftery, Dept of Archaeology, University College Dublin
Site type: Hillfort
Period/Dating: Iron Age (800 BC-AD 339)
ITM: E 690131m, N 673140m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.801715, -6.663352
During Spring of 1973 a brief campaign took place to investigate an annular ditch, portion of which had come to light at the end of the 1972 season. The ditch was situated immediately outside and to the east of the central, polygonal, stone enclosure and was in fact partly overlain by this later structure.
Upon examination the ditch, which was V-shaped in section and 50-80cm deep on average, was seen to enclose a circular area some 19-20cm in diameter. In the centre of this an oval-shaped pit has been dug to contain a cremated burial. The burnt bones were placed on a flat slab which rested on the bottom of the pit. A small ring of fist-sized stones surrounded the perimeter of the pit base.
The burial-pit had been dug into an area of reddened burnt soil in which human bone fragments occurred, suggesting that the actual cremation had taken place on the spot.
Partly enclosing this burnt area, and forming a roughly horseshoe-shaped arrangement, was a dense mass of closely-spaced stakeholes. Fifteen hundred of these were brought to light and, since none of them overlapped or cut into each other, it would appear they formed a single unit, though the original appearance of this odd arrangement must remain as yet speculative.
A considerable number of pits occurred within the ditched enclosure but it is not certain if all are contemporary. One contained fragments of three bronze artifacts of Late Bronze Age date.
Apart from some medieval objects all the finds from the area belong to the Late Bronze Age period and there can be no doubt that the burial here described forms the first certainly attested burial of this era in Ireland.
Reference: Antiquity 47, 1973, 293-295.
