County: Tipperary Site name: CHANCELLORSLAND
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 92E0128
Author: Martin Doody, Discovery Programme
Site type: Enclosure
Period/Dating: Bronze Age (2200 BC-801 BC)
ITM: E 576555m, N 635748m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.472662, -8.345078
A second season of excavation was undertaken at Chancellorsland as part of the Discovery Programme, Ballyhoura Hills Project in 1993. The excavation was of 12 weeks' duration and took place between May and August. The work concentrated on the oval double-ditched enclosure Site A, which had produced a series of Bronze Age dates following on the 1992 excavation (Excavations 1992, 56-7).
Almost 13% of the interior of the enclosure together with sections through the surrounding ditches have been excavated. At least two distinct phases of activity were recognised on the ground and this ties in well with the radiocarbon evidence which indicates a long period of use in the Bronze Age. Indications are that the site expanded through time and that the outer ditch was a later addition to the site in the Later Bronze Age. A total of 11 structures or parts thereof were recorded within the enclosure.
Among the finds was a considerable assemblage of coarse pottery, flint, chert, struck crystal quartz and two metal pins or awls. There was excellent preservation of organic remains in the ditches where finds included butchered animal bones and wood on which were well-preserved tool marks.
Preliminary pollen analysis has been carried out by Dr. D. Weir of Queen's University, Belfast. The results indicate the presence of cultivated species including flax in a generally wetland environment.
13-15 Lr. Hatch St., Dublin 2
