County: Tipperary Site name: DER311, Derryfadda
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 96E0202ext.
Author: Cara Murray, Lisheen Archaeological Project, for Margaret Gowen & Co. Ltd.
Site type: Road - gravel/stone trackway - peatland
Period/Dating: Bronze Age (2200 BC-801 BC)
ITM: E 622633m, N 665780m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.742623, -7.664803
A number of sites were constructed as a result of a substantial lowering of the water-table which occurred in the Late Bronze Age, around 1250 BC. This was probably the result of a second bog-burst. These sites included two very different stone tracks, which were excavated in the south-eastern area. The first of these (DER311) was located 4m south of the landfall of DER13, which was excavated last season (Excavations 1996, 104). DER311 was constructed as a linear arrangement of stones, 15.46m in total length and 1.48m wide, which ran east–west through the marginal forest of the bog. It was laid down as a single event and there was no evidence of repair or secondary work. In one area brushwood was used to supplement the stone. The site was located towards the base of the wood-rich fen peat between root systems of the alder carr forest. On its landfall the site occurred as an almost continuous deposit of stone, which rested and petered out on the mineral soil, where there was no necessity for the track. A wooden artefact which consisted of a small wooden panel, 185–273mm in surviving length, 61–70.7mm in width and 15–25.5mm in thickness, was uncovered on the southern side of the landfall. The panel was broken at both ends, with a semicircular notch at one end and a keyhole-shaped cut at the other, and appeared to form part of a more complex artefact.
Minorco Lisheen Ltd, Killoran, Moyne, Co. Tipperary
