1990:025 - RINNARAW, Donegal

A fourth season of excavations was undertaken at this site during late July and the month of August 1990. The project was facilitated and serviced by the Portnablagh Hotel and funded by the Department of Archaeology, University College, Galway, as a training excavation.

Investigations within the house structure uncovered in earlier seasons were concentrated mainly on the shell midden deposits. The northern midden was fully removed yielding, as before, sizeable quantities of periwinkles and limpets. No other form of shell was present and the only other material from this deposit consisted of a small piece of vitreous slag, probably from a tuyere. The western midden lay outside the entrance to the house and it, too, consisted solely of limpets and periwinkles. Excavation of this deposit was completed and among the small finds from this level were three sherds of a hand-made coarse pottery - one a rim sherd decorated with diagonal stabs. Samples from both shell middens were sent to Groningen for C-14 dating through the good offices of Dr Anna Brindley and have yielded the following results: 910±50 BP and 790±50 BP.

Excavation within the house was largely confined to the remaining deposits of fine black soil beside the entrance which produced a further portion of the lignite ring discovered in the first season. The shallow drain feature directly north of the internal partition was followed as it exited underneath the western wall into a small sump or pit. Samples of the sticky whitish clay from this sump were taken for analysis by the Botany Department at UCG. A charcoal sample from the lowest levels of the central stone-lined hearth was also sent to Groningen and produced a C-14 date of 1330+60 BP.

The two quadrants to the south of the house site were opened up as far as the perimeter of the rock platform. Both areas yielded considerable quantities of iron slag including furnace bottoms. In the south-eastern sector a number of large paving stones were uncovered together with some fragments of coursed stones or footings hinting at the presence of a second structure beside the rock outcrop on the perimeter of the site. From the soil above and around these stones about a hundred sherds of pottery were recovered. The pieces consist mainly of body sherds of a coarse hand-made blackened fabric similar to those found in the western midden. Rim sherds are of the everted type and the few base sherds indicate that the ware was flat-bottomed with an outward splay. A portion of the upper stone of a small disc-type quern and a complete furnace bottom were found at the same level.

A number of cuttings were extended beyond the perimeter on the eastern and western sides. On the eastern side the bedrock showed prominently whilst on the west the basal layer of a wall base could be discerned. Examination of the lithological types at the site by Dr Michael Williams of the Department of Geology, U.C.G., showed that the bedrock is of metadolerite. Some of the large blocks on the northern perimeter are feldspar porphyries indicating that a form of man-made enclosure existed along at least a portion of the rocky platform. The paved area within the southern sector of the house consists of mica shist and an ironstone.