County: Limerick Site name: MITCHELSTOWNDOWN WEST
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 49:230-3 Licence number: —
Author: Aoife Daly and Eoin Grogan, The Discovery Programme
Site type: Barrow - unclassified and Barrow - ditch barrow
Period/Dating: Bronze Age (2200 BC-801 BC)
ITM: E 572356m, N 628749m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.409563, -8.406303
The cemetery of Mitchelstowndown West near Knocklong contains 53 small barrows. Excavation of 4 of these took place over an 8-week period in July and August, 1992.
The land is fairly flat on a large scale but in closer detail low natural platforms defined by old river channels occur. The soils in the immediate area of the site consist of lake alluvial deposits and gleys.
Barrow 54
The site is defined by a U-sectioned ditch. At the south-east the ditch extends outwards to define a crescentic area or shelf. On the exterior edge of the main ditch deep tool marks, the result of using a mattock or similar implement, were found. The inner edge of the ditch is a neat, almost vertical face. Tiny bone fragments were found in the ditch silt but are too fragmentary to be identified (Barra Ó Donnabháin, pers. comm.). The mound was built of material from the ditch. It survived to a maximum height of 0.18m. A second curvilinear ditch was located within the central area of the barrow. This is semi-circular in plan. It cut through the mound of Barrow 54 and thus post-dates it. In modern times the mound was flattened and the ditch had been deliberately filled.
Finds include a fragment of chert debitage, a humanly modified chert pebble, a slightly burnt flint flake, a chert scraper and a fragment of a whetstone. The disturbance dates to the recent past as it contained modern delph and iron fragments.
Barrow 55
The ditch is U-shaped in profile having straight vertical sides and a flat base. After an apparently short period of silting, material collapsed into the ditch, sealing a layer of grassy fibres. A residue of the mound survived.
Finds include a fragment of shert debitage, a chert flake with retouch and a fragment of flint debitage. The destruction of the barrow probably coincides with the destruction of Barrow 54.
Barrow 61
The ditch is U-shaped in profile having straight vertical sides and a flat base. After a period of silt accumulation, material had collapsed into the ditch sealing a layer of grassy fibres as in the ditch of Barrow 55. The ditch was subsequently re-cut to a narrow V-shaped trench on the eastern side. At the southern side of the barrow, which lacked evidence for re-cutting, the interior edge had uneven tool-marks similar to those on Barrow 54. There was no surviving mound.
The ditch contained a retouched flint flake. This site was probably flattened at the same time as Barrows 54 and 55.
Barrow 62
Barrow 62 has a gently curved ditch profile. In the ditch a sterile silty deposit accumulated. It contained some tiny fragments of bone but this is too fragmentary to be identified as to species (Barra Ó Donnabháin, pets. comm.). The upper fill consisted of more solid material, probably derived from the mound of which there was no surviving evidence.
Discussion
The Mitchelstowndown West sites form a clear element of the barrow complex and the associated funerary tradition in the Morningstar Valley and probably dare to the Middle to Late Bronze Age. Because there is no conclusive evidence that the barrows had a funerary function it is postulated that burial deposits had become so token that the barrows' function had become a symbolic monument associated with burial rituals and perhaps with remembrance of the dead.
13-15 Hatch St, Dublin 2
