1987:10 - GIANT'S GRAVE, Magheracar, Donegal

NMI Burial Excavation Records

County: Donegal Site name: GIANT'S GRAVE, Magheracar

Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number:

Author: Eamon Cody, Ordnance Survey, Dublin

Site type: Megalithic tomb - passage tomb

Period/Dating: Neolithic (4000BC-2501 BC)

ITM: E 579455m, N 858800m

Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.477258, -8.316980

A second and final season's excavation was undertaken at this site over a six-week period during September-October 1987. The work was carried out at the request of the National Monuments Branch of the O.P.W. who also funded it.

The monument is an undifferentiated passage tomb standing towards the eastern side of a kerbed cairn sited on a sea-cliff. The cairn measures 20m east-west but only 10m north-south as its northern half has been lost to the sea.

Three cuttings were made in the cairn and, in addition, excavation of the tomb area (the focus of the 1986 season's work see Excavations 1987) was completed. A cutting, 19m long, was made from the back of the tomb to the west along the cliff edge and was continued for 8m beyond the kerb. The other two cuttings, parallel to each other and 4m apart, both 2m wide, ran approximately north-south. The more westerly of these was 10m long and extended inwards for 4m and outwards for 6m from the kerb, while the other, 12m long, extended inwards for 4m and outwards for 7m. Both of these cuttings crossed a grass-grown trackway that runs east-west just outside the kerb at the south side of the cairn. This trackway had been formed by a levelling of the extra-revetment material. At the west and south sides of the cairn two kerb-stones and parts of two others were exposed. These form part of a contiguously laid setting of large blocks of local stone.

The cairn body, under a sod cover some 0.15m thick, is of stones and intermixed loose brown earth to a depth of some 0.5m. The stones in its upper 0.1m are small and do not exceed 0.1m in maximum dimension while below them there are large slabs as much as 0.8m across and 0.2m thick along with occasional water-rolled boulders. Under the cairn there is a compact layer, on average 50mm thick, of sticky earth, brown to blue-grey in colour, with small stones. This layer contained flecks of charcoal and occasional fire-reddened stones, reflecting pre-cairn activity. Finds made were confined to this layer and consist largely of waste flakes of flint and other stone. One of the few recognisable types is a leaf-shaped flint arrowhead, 30mm long.