County: Louth Site name: CAPPOCKSGREEN
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 99E0458
Author: Matthew Seaver for Valerie J. Keeley Ltd.
Site type: Burnt spread
Period/Dating: Prehistoric (12700 BC-AD 400)
ITM: E 697094m, N 790989m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.859268, -6.524019
Excavation took place from 20 August to 1 September 1999 on a possible fulacht fiadh exposed during topsoil-stripping for the Ardee link road.
The site is on a broad bend of the River Dee, 140m from the present course of the river at the western margin of the original flood-plain. A spread of heat-fractured stones in a charcoal-rich soil lay in an apparent arc, 6.6m long by c. 2.3m wide, around a further concentration of burnt stones in a subrectangular pattern, 1.15m by 0.75m. The archaeological deposits were sealed by ploughsoil and lay on the surface of, and sloped into, a light brown, sandy clay that formed a 0.5m-thick deposit over the underlying natural subsoil of sand and gravel. The sandy clay is probably the result of inundations from the river.
Excavation revealed that the burnt stone deposits were no more than 0.08m thick. The subrectangular concentration of stones was removed onto a smooth surface of charcoal with some ash, possibly a hearth. A second, similar setting of burnt and unburnt stones overlying a charcoal-stained surface, 0.67m by 0.55m, was found 2m to the south-east of the main burnt spread. However, no evidence was found for a trough at the site, which was eventually expanded to an area 18m by 13m.
A waste flint flake from the arc of burnt stone was the only artefact recovered.
29-30 Duke Street, Athy, Co. Kildare
