County: Limerick Site name: TANKARDSTOWN SOUTH
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: —
Author: Christine Tarbett and Margaret Gowen
Site type: House - Neolithic
Period/Dating: Neolithic (4000BC-2501 BC)
ITM: E 558459m, N 628149m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.403294, -8.610475
Excavation took place over a four-week period in October 1987 to test for further Neolithic features associated with the house site (House 1) excavated in the course of gas pipeline construction in 1986. The excavation was funded by a Royal Irish Academy grant.
Two small cuttings located at either end of House 1 confirmed that the entire ground plan had been exposed in 1986 and that it did not have an annexe. However, in cutting 2 a substantial earth-cut pit, the fill of which contained charred grain, was located c. 2m from the west end of the house. The charred grain recovered from the pit fill may prove to be emmer wheat (triticum dicoccm). This grain type has already been identified by Mick Monk (Dept. of Archaeology, U.C.C.) from the fill of an interior posthole in House 1.
These cuttings were opened within an area 30m north and north-west of House 1. In one of these cuttings, evidence for a second house (House 2) was revealed by a foundation trench which represents the north-east corner of a structure with an annexe. It contained burnt material including in situ timbers and packing boulders. Western Neolithic pottery and flint implements were amongst the finds from the trench fill. Unlike House 1, a slot trench parallel to the east trench and 2m from it would seem to form an annexe extension. The greater portion of House 2 remains in the unexcavated area to the south and south-west of this year's cutting.
A shallow ditch containing a small quantity of Neolithic pottery was excavated in the cutting between the established house sites. Features in the remaining cutting provided no dating material.
A pit, containing two badly broken, upright, undecorated Bronze Age pots, each containing a cremation, was found 0.3m from the east trench in the interior of House 2.
The results of this year's work have increased the evidence for settlement on the site during the Neolithic period. It is hoped that further excavation will be possible in the coming season with the aid of a Royal Irish Academy grant.
Coolalough, Hospital, Co. Limerick
