1977-79:071 - KNOCKNASHAMMER, Sligo

A small tumulus, 11m in diameter and 1.4m high, surrounded by a round-bottomed fosse and a slight bank, was sited on an east-west ridge on the opposite side of the road to the Cloverhill cist. Gravel excavation had removed the ridge to the east of the mound, leaving it at the top of a 15m-high gravel cliff. Some disturbance had taken place on the east side of the monument.
Its pre-excavation appearance suggested that the monument had been formed by scarping the side of the high point of the gravel ridge and by levelling off its top: excavation, however revealed that the monument was, in the main, artificially constructed. Beneath the sod, a layer of earth overlay an uneven mantle of largish stones. Beneath this was another aver of earth and an earlier mantle (of largish stories, beneath which was the undisturbed glacial gravel). The two mantles of stones merged towards the edge of the mound where a well-constructed retaining wall, four to six courses high, remained at some places (elsewhere it had collapsed into the fosse). It seems possible to, selectively, assign several stones to arc formation.
At the centre of the mound, in the earth aver between the two mantles of stones, two partly disarticulated burials were found, laid on a NE—SW axis in a poorly, if at all, prepared grave. One skull, that of a male of 20-30 years, was found beneath the pelvis of the lowermost skeleton while the other, that of a female of 30-40 years, was found about 30cm away from the nearest piece of bone. None of the bones of the spinal column, rib-cage, hands or feet were found. There were no accompanying grave goods nor any artifacts by which the monument can be dated.

Burenhult. G. (1984) The Archaeology of Carrowmore: Environmental Archaeology and the Megalithic Tradition atCarrowmore, Co . Sligo, Ireland. Stockholm, 324 (text), 321 (section) and fig. 223:15.