County: Limerick Site name: ATTYFLIN
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 99E0459
Author: Mary Deevy, ADS Ltd.
Site type: Fulacht fia
Period/Dating: Prehistoric (12700 BC-AD 400)
ITM: E 551411m, N 648400m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.584717, -8.716988
The site is in Attyflin townland, c. 9km south-west of Limerick City, east of the N20. The site was uncovered during archaeological monitoring of topsoil-stripping before road construction on the N20/N21 Adare to Annacotty road scheme. A rescue excavation was carried out over three-and-a-half weeks in August-September 1999. The site was close to marshy ground within which a fulacht fiadh (see No. 479, Excavations 1999) was excavated.
Two phases of activity were identified. The earliest phase consisted of a subsoil-cut subcircular pit that may have been a trough. This pit measured 1.8m in maximum diameter and 0.3m in maximum depth. There was evidence for a wooden structure in the form of stake-holes in its base and surrounding its upper edges. It was filled with black, charcoal-rich soil with frequent fragments of degraded sandstone. There was also a series of shallow, irregular-shaped, subsoil-cut pits and depressions, all with an upper fill of black, charcoal-rich soil with frequent fragments of degraded sandstone. It is unclear, however, whether any of these were hearths, owing to the lack of evidence for in situ burning. No artefacts or animal bone were recovered from any of these features.
The second phase of activity consisted of ploughmarks running in three directions, east-west, north-south and north-west/south-east.
Editor's Note: This site was formerly labelled as 'Isolated trough'.
Windsor House, 11 Fairview Strand, Fairview, Dublin 3
