1986:03 - DEER PARK FARMS, Antrim

In the early part of the 1986 season, two trial cuts, each 4m wide, were made into the sides of the mound on the N and S. Altogether an average of 2m of archaeological deposits has been removed from the mound and in the penultimate phase over 25 circular house outlines have been exposed. Although the lower levels of the mound have been reached only in the trial trenches it is now possible to summarize tentatively the sequence of the site's development:

(a) Slight traces of prehistoric activity in the old ground surface.

(b) A small ditch, 1m wide and 80cm deep, exposed in the old ground surface on the N. There may have been an external bank associated with this. The ditch appeared to be concentric with the base of the later mound in the N trench and was covered by (c) but did not appear on the S.

(c) Construction of a rath with simple dumped bank 1.2m high.

(d) Heightening of the rath bank to a total height of 2m and concurrent addition of internal dry-stone revetment.

(e) Dumping of midden material and gravel against inner face of bank at lower, N, side.

(f) Construction of an 'inturned' entrance passage 3m wide and 10m long. This rectangular structure was stone-paved and, internally, stone-revetted.

(g) A circular double-walled wicker house (structure X) 7.5m in diameter was erected on earlier occupation levels at the centre of the rath. The door of structure X faced E down the entrance passage and the inner ends of the passage initially came to within 1m of the house walls on each side of the door. Contemporary finds, which were few, include a decorated bronze brooch pin (from bedding area in the house) and the hub of a horizontal mill wheel from a midden layer outside the house. No souterrain ware has been recovered from the extensive excavation of deposits of this phase which may have begun in the later 8th century.

(h) During the lifetime of structure X low platforms carrying other structures were built up inside the rath and large deposits of organic rubbish accumulated.

(i) Areas not already raised by local platforms were heightened by dumping an average of 2m of gravelly subsoil inside the rath. This did not, however, produce a level, raised, living surface. The entrance passageway was filled in and an access ramp was constructed higher up on the same axis. The walls of structure x were still standing to a considerable height when encased in this build-up. A low bank (continuous with the new mound core) was made around the edge of the summit and the sequence of 'penultimate phase' houses was started.

(j) About half way through this sequence of houses a further small stone-revetted bank was built over that noted in (i) and a massive cladding of boulders was added to the dressed-back outside of the mound. This was best represented on the uphill side where it rested on the inner edge of a 2m-wide platform deep down in the ditch.

(k) A fresh layer of build-up was added to the mound, thickest on the S, where a souterrain was built in step with the heightening. Occupation continued to abandonment, probably before the end of the Early Christian period.The excavation has exposed a remarkable sequence of deposits containing a large number of well-preserved house plans and demonstrating in a series of small stages the gradual evolution of a simple rath into a substantial mound. A full programme of environmental sampling, is in hand and it is hoped that the fourth and final season of excavation, April-July 1987, will enable the extensive excavation of the early phases of the rath.