County: Clare Site name: POULNABRONE
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: —
Author: Ann Lynch, National Parks and Monuments Branch, Office of Public Works, Dublin.
Site type: Megalithic tomb - portal tomb
Period/Dating: Neolithic (4000BC-2501 BC)
ITM: E 523494m, N 700199m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.046972, -9.141010
Excavations were concentrated in the chamber of this portal tomb, to allow repairs to be carried out to the cracked eastern portal stone. A cutting was also excavated through the surrounding cairn at a point where an ancient field fence could be seen to meet the cairn.
The chamber
The clay fill of the chamber averaged 25-30cm in depth and was relatively homogeneous in colour and texture with no clear stratification. Some disturbance had been caused by rodents and burrowing rabbits.
A large quantity of human bone (and some animal bone) was recovered from the chamber, representing at least 5 or 6 individuals, including children. The distribution of the skeletal elements suggests that the burials were disartictulated before being interred in the chamber. There was no evidence of cremated bone in the chamber.
The finds
The following artifacts were recovered from the burial matrix within the chamber: 1 polished stone axe, 2 stone beads, a decorated bone pendant, a fragment of a mushroom-headed bone pin, 2 quartz crystals, several sherds of undiagnostic coarse pottery, 1 hollow-based chert arrowhead, 2 leaf-shaped chert points, 1 chert side-scraper, 1 chert end-scraper, 1 flint end-scraper.
The portico
At the entrance to the chamber, in front of the sill-stone, three stones set on edge delimited the edge of the cairn and formed a portico-like feature. The portico was backfilled with a loose brown gravelly earth which produced bone fragments (mostly animal) and a single sherd of coarse pottery.
The cairn
Close to the chamber, large limestone flags were roughly piled up, as if to prop the sidestones. Smaller stones covered the large flags and extended outwards to the edge of the cairn. There were no kerb-stones delimiting the edge of the cairn. A buried soil horizon (10-12cm deep) was found sealed beneath the larger cairn-stone on the bedrock.
