2000:0425 - CLOGHERMORE CAVE, Cloghermore, Kerry

During this second season, excavation continued both inside the cave itself and inside the D-shaped enclosure on the surface. Inside the cave the three remaining quadrants of the chamber known as ‘The Graveyard’ were excavated, and most of the soil that formed the upper layer in the sloping entrance gallery was removed.

Two offshoot passages/recesses on the eastern side of this soil slope were also investigated.

‘The Graveyard’
This year’s excavation of the soil in the north-eastern quadrant uncovered large quantities of human, animal and cremated animal bone from a brown soil that rested on a floor of roof-collapsed boulders and stalagmite material.

Work in other areas of ‘The Graveyard’ continued to produce human and animal bone, as well as amber beads, iron fragments, worked bone and pieces of bone combs, while a short passage at the north-eastern end of the chamber produced human remains and a loop-headed ring-pin.

The entrance gallery
The removal of the dark brown soil from the steeply sloping entrance gallery was the main undertaking during this season of excavation. As in most areas of excavation, this soil rests on sterile sediment and contains large quantities of disarticulated human and animal bone.

Area W
This small area was located immediately inside and to the east of the cave entrance. It was distinguished from the remainder of the entrance gallery by the fact that it contained the only articulated burial uncovered in the cave system. The skeleton lay on the sloping sediment with the legs to the north-west and the upper half of the body in a very shallow, U-sectioned depression.

As well as the articulated skeleton, Area W produced the remains of a female and a child. Finds from the area included a ring-pin, a boat-shaped whetstone, a small iron knife, numerous iron fragments and a small silver button, all directly associated with the articulated burial.

Area V
This area was located immediately inside the entrance to the cave and abutted Area W to the east. Here the normally sterile underlying sediment layer was charcoal-rich and contained large quantities of bone. Excavation of this redeposited sediment showed that it filled a subrectangular pit, which was deepest towards its southern end. Excavation of the pit produced large quantities of animal bone, including very young animals, and the bones of at least one adult and a child, as well as iron knives, bone combs, a bone point, a bone pin, a bone spindle-whorl and a decorated bone gaming-piece.

Area U
This short offshoot passage, on the eastern side of Area X, was 4.9m long (east–west) and 1.4m wide. Excavation of a shallow layer of soil here produced quantities of animal bone and the bones of an adult male, an adult female and three children. Finds included iron fragments, a decorated bone handle, a stone spindle-whorl, a pendant whetstone, the shaft of a bronze ring-pin, a metal stud with textile attached, a blue glass bead with yellow paste decoration and a decorated bone gaming-piece.

The enclosure excavation
Three further trenches, in addition to the one excavated last year (Excavations 1999, 113–14), were opened, two in the interior and one across the enclosing bank. The trench across the bank confirmed the findings from last year—the bank was composed of two stone-and-earth banks with a ditch between them; however, the ditch here was cut into the underlying boulder clay rather than through the bedrock.

The trenches opened in the interior, on the western and east-south-eastern sides of the entrance shaft, indicated that a bowl-shaped depression had been excavated around the entrance and subsequently filled. This was presumably necessary to facilitate enlargement of the natural opening to the cave and construction of the drystone walling of the entrance shaft.

The largest trench was that opened on the eastern and south-eastern sides of the entrance shaft (4.5m north–south x 7.5m). Centrally placed within the trench were the remains of a pyre where the animal bone uncovered within the stone setting in ‘The Graveyard’ had been cremated. The pyre was situated in a subcircular depression from which a flue extended eastward.

Elsewhere in the trench, 22 stake- and post-holes, as well as two slot-trenches, were excavated. The holes varied in diameter from 0.06m to 0.8m, and a number of the post-holes contained stones, which were probably used as packing for the wooden posts. The longer of the two slot-trenches was truncated by the later flue of the cremation pyre, while the decorated side plates of a bone comb were also recovered from this slot-trench.

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