County: Meath Site name: STAMULLEN
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 95E0143
Author: D.L. Swan, Arch-Tech Ltd
Site type: Structure
Period/Dating: Undetermined
ITM: E 714926m, N 765719m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.628654, -6.262459
An archaeological programme of testing was carried out on this site, which is located in the village of Stamullin, Co. Meath. It adjoins the ancient churchyard, which borders it to the north, and is contained within the curve of the road which extends from the south-west to the north-east, forming the main street of the village.
The site has undergone much change over the past fifty years or so, having been lately used as a gravel quarry, which resulted in the removal of most of the original surface and subsurface deposits over the greater part of the site. However, the area to the east, lying directly adjacent to the main street, had escaped this treatment, having been used as a flower and vegetable garden over a number of years.
Testing over most of the site confirmed the anticipated level of destruction and removal of deposits, so that only a single possible early feature was recovered. This was the base of a ditch deeply cut into the underlying deposits, exposed at a point approx. 60m south from the present boundary wall of the churchyard and apparently extending east to west. No artefacts were recovered which might help to identify or to date this feature.
Trial-trenching in the eastern part of the site within the garden area revealed significant undisturbed deposits at a depth of between 0.6m and 0.8m below the present surface. These layers preserved a substantial archaeological feature, clearly visible in the exposed sections. A small deposit of human bone, together with a number of sherds of medieval pottery, glazed and unglazed, which occurred in the disturbed deposits directly overlying this feature may provide a datable context.
It is possible that this feature represents the remnant of a hut or house site, defined by an upper and lower spread of clean redeposited boulder clay with lenses and layers of occupational material between. Within these deposits was a well-defined hearth with associated stone settings. One of these stones was identified as a fragment of a rotary quern. No other diagnostic artefact was recovered.
Without extensive excavation, a complete analysis is not possible but these deposits are unlikely to date from a period later than that represented by the pottery. The pottery has been identified as North Leinster Ware, 13th-14th-century, and thus it is probable that the feature belongs to an earlier phase of activity or occupation.
32 Fitzwilliam Place, Dublin 2
