1998:217 - STEPASIDE, Dublin

This licence originally for testing (Excavations 1997, 24) was extended to cover a rescue excavation in advance of construction at a housing estate. The excavation covered an area measuring c. 38m x 32m. With the exception of features cut into the subsoil, most deposits had been affected by ploughing. Nevertheless, the excavation did identify a series of activities including settlement, the construction of field boundaries, agricultural cultivation and quarrying.

Evidence of settlement was based on a series of postholes and wall slots. Soil samples contained charcoal, and oak, ash and hazel species were identified from these. One of these charcoal samples (oak) was sent to Groningen for 14C dating and produced a date of 3670±50 BP.

Settlement was also represented by pottery, as well as struck and worked flints, which were found across the site. The flint assemblage was examined by Nyree Finlay of UCC, who concluded 'the chronological affinities of the assemblage are Neolithic-Bronze Age with a post-EBA date preferred for most of the material'. The pottery was identified as Leinster cooking ware, a 13th- to early 14th-century ware.

Field boundaries were represented by a linear north-east/south-west-oriented ditch, which also served as a drainage channel. Several fragments of the medieval pottery were found in the fill. Analysis of a soil sample from the ditch identified charred grains of oat (Avena sp.) and a possible rye grain (Secale sp.).

Agricultural cultivation was identified in a whole series of regularly spaced furrows, which were oriented at an approximate right angle to the drainage ditch/field boundary. While it is thought that most of the furrows were contemporary with the boundary, some cut through the backfill, thus indicating a later date.

Evidence of quarrying was seen where a large quarry-pit truncated the east side of the site, including one side of the area of postholes.

29/30 Duke Street, Athy, Co. Kildare