2000:0067 - CORROVORRIN, Clare

The background to this excavation is outlined under No. 49, Excavations 2000 (98E0277). The archaeological remains were located directly on top of fen peats in a wetland situation. While the excavators tried to ascertain the most effective way of stripping the peat, the machine got stuck. A series of archaeological traces was disturbed in the subsequent manoeuvrings. These were spread across the interface between probable prehistoric fen peats and more recent peat and sod layers, in an area 19.5m x 5.8m (Cutting 1). After consultations with Dúchas The Heritage Service and the Irish Archaeological Wetland Unit, two cuttings were excavated along the northern edge of the construction trench to further test the nature of the archaeology. Cutting 2 was 4m east–west x 3m, while Cutting 3, which was 6m from this, was 3.7m east–west x 4m.

Cutting 1 was disturbed by the machine getting stuck and also by a recently placed drainage trench from an adjacent housing estate. Still, a number of finds were discovered in situ. These included worked wood fragments, a rhyolite flake and a number of pieces of antler, which also had signs of being worked. These were mixed in with some root activity. The initial appearance of this being a trackway proved to be unfounded on further excavation. Both other cuttings had the remains of heat-shattered small stones mixed in with a thin layer of charcoal. Throughout these layers and sandwiched between them and the fen peats below were a number of pieces of worked wood, roots and charred wood remains. The charred wood had all the appearance of being embers removed from a hearth.

These traces led to the conclusion that the edge of a fulacht fiadh had been clipped, revealing the remains of rubbish dumped in the immediate environs of some such activity. The excellent preservation conditions provided what may prove to be some useful information about ‘peripheral’ activities associated with burnt mound activity. At the very least they begin to break down the expectation of sterility when it comes to excavating and interpreting these sites. There is a previously recorded fulacht fiadh to the north of this site. Probing the area north of Cuttings 2 and 3 proved inconclusive.

Conclusion
The opportunity to excavate two sites that have the same general archaeological designation of fulacht fiadh raises some interesting questions, which are partly answered by these excavations. Firstly, experience here suggests that we should be careful of the term fulacht fiadh. It can lead to an expectation of homogeneity in the type of evidence that is uncovered, which does not reflect the complexity of evidence found even on these two small and damaged sites. We should be careful about making too close an association with fulachta fiadh and cooking sites. It is likely that something was being cooked or heated, but what? Even accepting the cooking hypothesis, if one sees them as being but one part of a more complex material and social reality where cooking and related activities such as hunting, herding, gathering fuel, eating, loving, cleaning etc. were all going on together, we might begin to expect more of these monuments.

Although it is very fragmentary, the site at Ballymaley focuses attention in a very concentrated manner on the trough. The evidence for the existence of a superstructure directly associated with the water trough is convincing. This pushes interpretation of this feature towards the sweat lodge or bathing hypothesis (Ó Drisceoil 1988; 1990). The site at Corrovorrin is very different. By chance, the feature was just clipped, and rubbish discarded at the edge of the mound was discovered. This serves as a reminder that there is more to burnt mounds than just the mound and the trough. Reflected in the remains, regardless of levels of preservation, and barring catastrophic levels of post-depositional interference, are the worldviews, ideologies and personalities of prehistoric peoples. Contemporary reconstructions of fulachta fiadh emphasise the technological aspects of them, how long it took to cook so much of a certain kind of meat in such and such conditions. While this clearly has its place, preliminary analysis of these sites suggests that a more deeply contextualising approach will reveal more than was thought possible previously.

Most of the literature on this site type shows archaeologists adopting an approach that can be characterised as ‘find the trough(s)’, as though this element of the burnt mound holds the key to interpreting the whole feature. While it is true that the presence of a trough is of importance in helping us to give the monument a name (fulacht fiadh), the relationship between this archaeological category and the historical reality of these sites is not necessarily clear-cut. The fragmented traces found at both sites fall into our preconceptions of what burnt mounds should be. They also suggest that we should broaden our interpretive framework to allow other possibilities.

References
Ó Drisceoil, D.A. 1988 Burnt mounds: cooking and bathing? Antiquity 62, 671–80.
Ó Drisceoil, D.A. 1990 Fulachta fiadh: the value of early Irish literature. In V. Buckley (ed.), Burnt offerings. Dublin.

Editor’s note: The summary of this excavation, which was carried out during 1998, arrived too late for publication in the bulletin of that year.

Riveroaks, Riverstown, Birr, Co. Offaly