County: Sligo Site name: A FIELD-WALKING SURVEY OF THE KNOCKNAREA MOUNTAIN AREA, CO. SLIGO
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: E000998
Author: Stefan Bergh, Department of Archaeology, University of Stockholm
Site type: Excavation - miscellaneous
Period/Dating: Multi-period
ITM: E 568993m, N 836528m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.276610, -8.476089
A field-walking survey is being undertaken in the townlands of Knocknarea North, Knocknarea South, Grange North, Rathcarrick and Drinaghan, all in the Knocknarea Mountain area of County Sligo. The work commenced in December 1998 and will continue during 1999. It forms part of a research project called ‘The Sacred Mountain. The identity of a landscape’, which focuses on the role of the Knocknarea Mountain within the symbolic and physical world of the Neolithic Cúil Irra region. One of the main aims of the survey is to record the occurrence and extent of Neolithic activity within this prominent mountain.
The survey falls spatially into two different areas: the lower, eastern ridge covered by forestry; and the higher, grazed mountain to the west with the well-known group of passage tombs on the flat top. The survey within the forestry is almost complete and has shown that a large number of worked chert and chert implements are to be found within this ridge. Unfortunately, certain parts of the forestry are extremely densely planted, which has made surveying impossible.
A preliminary interpretation of the results so far is that the lower ridge of Knocknarea Mountain, which overlooks the Carrowmore cemetery, was an area with extensive activity during the Neolithic.
