1996:299 - COOLAVALLY, Mayo

The site was discovered (by G. Walsh) during monitoring of topsoil removal in advance of road construction being carried out by Mayo County Council. A layer of burnt and cracked stones was exposed adjacent to a small mound. The excavation revealed that an area of 25m x 20m was covered in a layer of burnt stone up to 0.25m thick which had been spread from the mound by ploughing. The area to the west of the original mound had been infilled by machine during recent land reclamation, causing damage to the south-west and west sides of the mound.

The undisturbed remainder of the mound was roughly kidney-shaped, measuring 5m north-west/south-east x 3m wide x 0.5m high, and contained two distinct layers. The upper layer comprised fire-cracked and broken sandstone fragments and charcoal-rich soil to a depth of 0.4m. The lower layer was more undulating and irregular in plan, covering an area of 3m x 2m. It was densely packed and contained a large quantity of charcoal pieces throughout.

A roughly rectangular area of sand, 1.8m x 1.2m and up to 0.2m thick, was exposed on the north side of the mound at this level, above which was a 0.15m-thick layer of fire-shattered stones. A subrectangular slab, 0.6m x 0.4m, lay immediately to the south of the sand layer, which contained two thin lenses of charcoal. Within and below the sand lay the remains of six parallel lengths of wood up to 1.4m long. These rested on the undisturbed peat, an area (1.6m x 1.8m) of which was dug to a depth of 0.2m to accommodate both wood and sand.

Twenty-five pieces of chert were recovered from the surface of the core layer. Most of these comprised blank or waste flakes, while at least three produced evidence of secondary working. Samples of soil, wood and charcoal were taken for analysis and to procure a radiocarbon date for the site.