County: Antrim Site name: DONEGORE HILL
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: —
Author: Jim Mallory, Department of Archaeology, Queen's University Belfast
Site type: Large enclosure
Period/Dating: Neolithic (4000BC-2501 BC)
ITM: E 721325m, N 889192m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.736117, -6.116003
Donegore Hill is a large Neolithic ditched enclosure situated on the summit of Donegore Hill which overlooks the Six-Mile-Water valley in County Antrim. The site measures c. 150m x 200m and is roughly oval in shape. The outer perimeter of the site is marked by two shallow ditches and an inner palisade trench. Although the site has been badly damaged by repeated ploughing, traces of some structures have been recovered. The most notable of these is a circular structure approximately 8m in diameter and what appears on preliminary inspection to have been a stockade wall which measures at least 11m in length. Finds from the site include c. 30,000 sherds of Western Neolithic pottery, a large quantity of both flint waste and artefacts, numerous fragments of porcellanite axes and about a half dozen polished beads and pendants. In addition to this Neolithic material, one pit with the remains of two Early Bronze Age vessels has been uncovered. Excavation of the site will be resumed in 1986.
