County: Mayo Site name: BALLYKINE UPPER
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 96E0392
Author: Victor M Buckley, Archaeological Survey, National Monuments Service
Site type: Cairn - burial cairn and Cist
Period/Dating: Bronze Age (2200 BC-801 BC)
ITM: E 511570m, N 756022m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.546680, -9.334339
The site was inspected in March 1996 following the discovery of a multiple cist cairn with one of the cists visible . A local man, Mr M. O'Sullivan, had retrieved some human remains while field-walking and these had been sent to the National Museum.
The site consists of a circular cairn 15m in diameter and 1.3m high, with the short cist visible in the north-west quadrant. On excavation this proved to be a small polygonal cist, 0.4m long, 0.3m wide and 0.35m deep, built of corbelled dry-stone walling and capped with two lintels. Further finds were retrieved and examined in conjunction with the Museum material.
Palaeopathological analysis by Laureen Buckley showed that the grave had contained the cremated remains of at least one adult and the unburnt skeletal remains of a juvenile aged between 8 and 16 years at time of death. There were also intrusive rodent remains and several sherds of Food Vessel.
51 St Stephen's Green, Dublin 2
