1992:145 - CÉIDE FIELDS, Glenulra, Mayo

Excavation extended over 3 months at this site which is within the Neolithic pre-bog field system, and situated 2.5kms southeast of the Céide Fields Centre site, reported on in Excavations 1991. This site was discovered by chance when a number of artifacts were noticed lying on the surface of a roadway, recently extended to give access to the bog for turf cutting, on the east side of the Glenulra Valley.

A short extension to the roadway had been excavated by a mechanical digger, through the blanket pear to the soil underneath and the spoil deposited on the uncut peat alongside. A cursory examination of the spoilheap and the disturbed soil of the roadway revealed a number of pieces of chert, flint and quartz including both waste flakes and implements. Funding was provided by the O.P.W., who are now the owners of the land, to undertake a rescue excavation.

The entire disturbed surface of the roadway was excavated, which involved an area 19m long and narrowing from 10m to 4m wide. Approximately three-quarters of the machine spoilheap was also trowelled to recover finds. The machine had penetrated to the natural subsoil over most of the road surface, thus removing the archaeological strata. Also a large quantity of material was churned up by tractor traffic on the surface and by erosion. There were however, occasional intermittent, very shallow, spreads of grey charcoal-rich soil in situ overlying the subsoil. A layer of brown or grey brown charcoal-flecked soil, up to 0.2m thick, was undisturbed at the edges of the road at the southern terminal. This extends underneath the peat which is an uncut bank over 2m high at the eastern side and between 0.5m-1m high at the southern and western sides. There were a lot of stones up to 0.5m in size within the layer, and a number of finds. A single stakehole, sealed by that layer, was located close to the southwest edge of the road. A small area, 3m by 1m-2m, of peat was excavated in this area and the charcoal-flecked layer with frequent loose stones continued underneath, and this overlay 2 small vaguely defined pits.

Altogether a total of 1,100 finds were recovered, most of these from the machine spoilheap or from the disturbed material on the road surface. These consisted of 731 chert pieces, 281 quartz, 84 flint, 2 hammerstones and 2 pieces of pottery. The majority of the chert and flint were waste flakes or chips from the manufacturing of implements, and only a few pieces of the quartz were used artifacts. The general character of the material is undoubtedly Neolithic, with the commonly available chert including 54 concave scrapers, 24 rounded scrapers and 30 other scrapers as well as 2 knives, 2 borers and an awl. A further 52 flakes had slight retouch and/or wear. The rarer flint seemed to have been reserved for more unusual items such as a leaf-shaped arrowhead, a knife and a finely worked narrow curving blade, while only 2 concave scrapers were of a poor quality flint.

An interesting aspect of the assemblage is the dominance of the concave scraper. Only one of those is a full semi-circular shape, all the others having a very shallow concavity worked in the flake side. A few are dual concave scrapers and a few have the opposite straight side retouched.

The abundance of waste material indicates the manufacturing of artifacts on the site while the high proportion of used implements would also seem to indicate habitation and the likely existence of a dwelling house or houses here. Although a lot of archaeological material was removed by machine, it is quite probable there may still be substantial material under the peat around the road end. Other pre-bog activity is evidenced 50m further northwards along the roadway where substantial layers of charcoal and possible cultivation ridges are visible in the exposed roadside sections.

Ballyglass, Ballycastle, Co. Mayo