2000:0575 - BANEMORE, Limerick

Monitoring by Paul Stevens (Excavations 1999, 158, 99E0643), carried out in advance of construction associated with the Limerick Main Drainage Scheme, led to the discovery of a series of archaeological features in the townland of Banemore on the southern edge of Limerick City. The archaeological activity was identified on the brow of rising ground above the site of a newly discovered fulacht fiadh (see Excavations 2000, No. 607).

The site consisted of a series of subcircular pits, post- and stake-holes, bisected by a linear ditch. In all, 48 features were excavated: 19 post-holes, 18 pits, 10 stake-holes and a ditch. Many of these features showed signs of truncation. Topsoil had been removed from the field surface in previous years in preparation for the groundworks associated with Rathbane golf-course. The features were located within an area measuring 33m east–west by 17m.

Most of the features were uniformly filled with a natural deposit of mid to dark brown/grey, silty clay. Five of the pits had been deliberately backfilled (with heat-shattered sandstone and small fragments of burnt animal bone), while six contained evidence of in situ heating/burning. The pits averaged 1.2m x 1.1m in plan and 0.3m in depth and were all subcircular, shallow and typically flat-based. The post-holes averaged 0.4m x 0.4m in plan and 0.3m in depth. Four of these were stone-packed. No structural ground-plans were observable in the post/stake-hole arrangement, although most were located in the eastern half of the site and five of the stake-holes were within separate pits and contemporary with them.

Two artefacts were recovered from the site: a large sub-oval rubbing stone and a broken flint scraper. A date in the Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age is suggested, contemporary with some of the archaeological sites discovered in the vicinity of the site in the last number of years (Excavations 1999, 179–80, 99E0525, 99E0633 and 99E0634).

2 Killiney View, Albert Road Lower, Glenageary, Co. Dublin