County: Louth Site name: MELL (1)
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 00E0946
Author: Kieran Campbell, for Valerie J. Keeley Ltd.
Site type: Fulacht fia
Period/Dating: Prehistoric (12700 BC-AD 400)
ITM: E 706138m, N 776602m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.728266, -6.391543
A three-week excavation was conducted on this site, which was revealed in a section face on the N51 Link Road east of the Northern Motorway (Drogheda Bypass) where earthmoving had taken place before the start of archaeological monitoring. The site was 15m from a stream at the base of a ravine known locally as The Alts. Burnt mound material, up to 0.3m thick, was exposed for a distance of 10.8m (east–west) in the section face. The area available for excavation extended for 3.2m onto the road, where it was truncated by site works. The archaeological deposits continued north beyond the limit of the road.
The burnt mound material covered three features excavated into subsoil. A subrectangular pit, 1.5m x 1.2m and 0.8m deep, was filled with burnt stone. Adjacent to this, a subcircular pit, 1.5m in diameter and 0.41m deep, was filled with clean sand over a charcoal-rich, silty clay. The third cut, irregular in shape, was 0.4m deep, 1.1m wide and at least 1.6m long, continuing into the section face. Charcoal lining the base and sides of the cut was overlain by burnt stone and grey clay. There were no small finds. A post-medieval stone drain, 1.8m wide, cut through the prehistoric deposits.
6 St Ultan’s, Laytown, Drogheda
