County: Fermanagh Site name: TONYGLASKAN
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 194:40 Licence number: —
Author: Declan Hurl, EHS
Site type: Flat cemetery
Period/Dating: Bronze Age (2200 BC-801 BC)
ITM: E 638133m, N 852621m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.420725, -7.412436
The discovery and disturbance of a small cist cemetery in a sand quarry necessitated its investigation and removal.
Three cists were revealed in a tight group. Each was set within a large subcircular pit. The stone slabs comprising the sides were positioned and supported by smaller stones; floor slabs were then placed upon small supporting stones; and the pit around the cist was backfilled. When the interments took place, the capstones subsequently positioned over the cists appeared not to have been covered with soil but would have remained visible in the ground.
Grave A consisted of stone slabs forming a cist, 0.8m x 0.6m, within a pit 1.63m in diameter and 0.23–0.3m deep. It contained the disarticulated remains of an adult male, 1.73m tall and 25–35 years of age, within the loamy fill of the cist. Also within the fill were the shattered remains of a small, highly decorated bowl. The condition of this burial suggested that it had been disturbed before the current discovery and backfilled, with the capstone repositioned to cover the chamber.
Grave B consisted of a square cist, 0.6m x 0.48m, within a pit 2m in diameter and 0.63m deep. The cist was composed of four side-slabs and a number of base slabs, the latter raised above the soil by a few small stones. Unlike the other two graves, which were completely backfilled with the removed sandy soil, the slabs had been supported by smaller stones, up to 0.25m long, after partial backfilling. The cist contained the skeleton of a child, 5–7 years of age, crouched on its left side and clutching a flint scraper. The feet and base of the spine seemed to disappear beneath one of the base slabs, but, when this was lifted, there was no sign of the absent bones.
Grave C had been seriously disturbed by the machining but would initially have consisted of stone slabs enclosing a rectangular cist within a pit 0.57m deep. It contained the skeleton of another adult male, of similar size and age as that in Grave A but extended and supine, head pointing south. Another small, highly decorated bowl had been placed on the left side of the skull, though it had been shattered by the machine, as had the skeleton from the waist down. There were no other cists in the area, nor any indication of an enclosing ditch.
5–33 Hill Street, Belfast BT1 2LA
