County: Louth Site name: HILL OF RATH
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 00E0179
Author: Carmel Duffy, for Valerie J. Keeley Ltd.
Site type: Pit
Period/Dating: Prehistoric (12700 BC-AD 400)
ITM: E 704610m, N 777859m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.739873, -6.414258
The pit was discovered during topsoil-stripping, for Meath County Council (see Excavations 2000, No. 685), along 750m of the take of the Northern Motorway. The motorway in this area ran 300m from the site of a mound, discovered in the 1840s, which contained about 150 cremations under urns.
The pit measured 2m x 1m x 0.2m deep and was crescent-shaped. It contained one fill, a moderately sticky, clayey silt, mid-brown to grey in colour, with occasional to moderate charcoal inclusions.
Three pieces of flint were recovered. The pit must be seen as part of the complex of prehistoric features around it. (See Excavations 2000, No. 685 and Excavations 2000, No. 688.)
Umberstown Great, Summerhill, Co. Meath
