County: Cork Site name: PEPPERHILL (BGE)
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: —
Author: Christine Tarbett & Janie Crone
Site type: House - Neolithic
Period/Dating: Neolithic (4000BC-2501 BC)
ITM: E 552460m, N 608154m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.223088, -8.695802
The remains on this site may represent roughly one quarter of a Neolithic house. The features revealed included a trench 3.4m long filled with charred material and occupation debris, four postholes and two shallow pits. The postholes and pits were delimited by the linear trench.
A further linear ditch likely to be of later date ran N-S at a distance of 1.4m-2m outside the trench. It was traced for a distance of 7m. The total area excavated was 7m x 4m.
All the features on the site had been truncated in antiquity and the limestone bedrock lay very close to the surface, outcropping in places. Bedrock was also exposed in the sides and bases of some of the features excavated. At the bases of two postholes, circular and curvilinear formations in the rock appeared to have been utilised, if not actually cut for the purpose.
The 3.4m-long trench was 30-50cm wide and 30-50cm deep and was filled with a mixed deposit of heavily oxidised clay in a silty clay, charcoal fragments and charred material including a hazelnut shell fragment. Several fragments of pottery were recovered from it.
A small depression lying north of the trench, at a distance of 20cm, with a covering fill of that found in the trench may represent a continuation of the trench line. Two depressions in bedrock at the base of this feature at a depth of 35cm may have taken posts.
If this feature is associated with the trench the total length exposed in the pipeline corridor was 4.6m.
No continuation of these features at right angles or otherwise was found in the area excavated.
Four substantial 'internal' postholes were excavated. Two were situated roughly parallel to the trench at a distance of 1.5m.
Finds from the site included Western Neolithic pottery, a range of quartz and flint implements and waste flakes and charred macro-floral remains. A small amount of animal bone was found, all of which had been burnt.
5 St Catherine's Rd. Glenageary, Dublin
