County: Armagh Site name: HAUGHEY'S FORT, Tray
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR Arm 12:13 Licence number: —
Author: J.P. Mallory, Dept. of Archaeology, Queen's University, Belfast
Site type: Enclosure
Period/Dating: Multi-period
ITM: E 683433m, N 845302m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.349570, -6.716638
A 17m stretch of the inner ditch, immediately south of the section excavated in 1987-1989, was mechanically cleared and hand-cleaned in a search for animal bones and oak timbers, the latter in an attempt to dendro-date the site. The ditch was approximately 2.8m deep and the fill resulted both from natural erosion and the deliberate dumping of occupation material. Amongst the finds were wooden stakes, pieces of a wooden vessel, a wooden handle and an appreciable quantity of Late Bronze Age coarse ware. The considerable amount of animal bone included two large dog skulls. Unfortunately, the larger pieces of wood appear to be ash rather than oak.
Upslope of the ditch were the remains of a timber palisade filled with dark brown soil, charcoal and sherds of coarse ware; as it did not run the full length of the exposed section of the ditch, they may not be contemporary.
