2000:0760 - NINCH, Laytown, Meath

A large residential development is under construction on a phased basis at this site, overlooking the sea just north of Laytown village. The site occupies part of a ridge that runs parallel to the coast. Planning permission for the second phase was granted in February 2000. As a result of the discovery and excavation by Martin Reid of a ring-ditch and other features during the construction of Phase 1 (Excavations 1999, 242), the developers were required to employ a licensed archaeologist to monitor the topsoil-stripping associated with Phase 2.

A large number and variety of subsoil-cut features as well as extended inhumation burials were identified during the topsoil-stripping. Following discussions with Dúchas The Heritage Service and the developer, construction works were suspended pending the completion of an assessment of the exposed features to place them in their temporal and cultural context, to define the limits of the inhumation cemetery and to assess the impact of the development on the archaeological features. The assessment of the exposed features was carried out based on fourteen 3m-wide hand-dug test-trenches, which varied in length from 10m to 70m. A fifteenth trench (6m wide and 16m long) was cleared around a complex of pits and post-holes. In total, an area measuring 1408.5m2 was investigated.

The developer also undertook to fund the test excavation of the rest of the development site to the west and north of the area where the remains were found. Twenty 2m-wide machine-dug test-trenches were excavated, varying in length from 20m to 115m, the total area investigated measuring 2134m2.

Activity on the site can be separated into at least three phases.

Late Neolithic pits and post-holes
A series of approximately 23 subcircular pits/post-holes extended over an area 16m long; they were orientated in a general north–south direction. One of these features, a shallow (0.12m-deep) pit, contained a large number of undecorated potsherds, which have been identified as coming from a single vessel, most likely Grooved ware (A.L. Brindley, pers. comm.). Grooved ware was identified in the fill of four similar features. Post-pipes were found in at least two of these features, and packing-stones were noted in a number of others. One of the pits appeared to have been cut by a ditch, which has been dated to the mid-first millennium AD. These features were all truncated by ploughing.

Mid-first millennium AD enclosure and settlement activity
A large subcircular or subrectangular enclosure c. 120m (north–south) by 80m, defined by a ditch up to 5m wide and 2m deep, was identified. In one test-trench there appeared to be three parallel ditches of similar scale. A possible incurving entrance was identified midway along the western side of the enclosure. The base of a possible ploughed-out internal bank was found on the south-eastern side of the enclosure.

Two sherds of E ware (D.L. Swan, pers. comm.) and a fragment of a jet bracelet were found in the lower fills of the enclosure ditch. A fragment of a second jet bracelet, a bronze toilet implement and a series of bone pins (one crutch-headed) were found in the upper fills of the ditch. A pin from a ring-pin or brooch and a barbed and tanged arrowhead were found in the topsoil clearance.

Within the enclosed area a mass of features was identified. These included gullies, pits and post-holes. Two curvilinear gullies (up to 0.6m wide and 0.3m deep) formed enclosures measuring c. 9m in internal diameter. It is not certain if these represent wall slots for round houses or if they are ring-ditches.

A possible drystone-built kiln was found 21m from the enclosure ditch on its western side.

Various other features (gullies, pits and post-holes) were identified to the south-west, west and north of the enclosure. They appear to be broadly contemporary with the enclosure; a stick-pin was found in the fill of one curvilinear gully. The total area containing archaeological features is 225m (north–south) by 160m.

Mid-first millennium AD inhumation cemetery
Sixty-one extended inhumations were excavated in an area (25m north–south by 12m) within the northern half of the enclosure; the cemetery has not been fully excavated. The cemetery may be defined on its northern side by a curvilinear ditch. Many of the graves had been disturbed by later interments, suggesting that the cemetery did have defined limits and that it was in use over an extended time-span. Three burials were cut down into the fill of a substantial ditch 3.2m wide and 1.5m deep on the northern side of the cemetery. This ditch contained a large amount of occupation debris and is similar to the main enclosure ditch.

Most of the inhumations were orientated west–east (head at the west) and had been placed in a supine position. An exception was the prone burial of a child at the eastern edge of the cemetery. A number of burials in the south-eastern part of the cemetery were orientated north-west/south-east. Most of the burials were in stone-lined and slab-lined graves; a number had covering slabs. No definite lintel graves were found.

Single sherds of E ware were found in the fill of five graves. A corroded piece of iron (possibly a fragment of a blade) was found in the fill of a grave containing an older adult female. An annular bronze ring was found in the fill of a second grave containing an adult female.

Discussion
A large number of archaeological features have been identified on this site in an area of 36,000m2. At least three phases have been identified: Late Neolithic pits and post-holes associated with Grooved ware pottery; mid-first millennium AD enclosure and settlement; and mid-first millennium AD inhumation cemetery.

The Late Neolithic features can be compared to activity at Fourknocks Ridge, where similar pits associated with Grooved ware were uncovered (King 1999). Grooved ware was associated with a timber circle excavated by James Eogan in Bettystown, c. 3km to the north (Excavations 1998, 161, 98E0072).

The latter phase consists of a very substantial enclosure. A large amount of animal bone (twenty fertilizer sacks-full) has been recovered, mostly from the fill of the enclosure ditch. The presence of E ware and a number of personal ornaments suggests that it was a relatively high-status settlement site. However, it would be unusual to have an inhumation cemetery in the middle of a settlement site (the discovery of E ware in the fill of the ditch and with the burials implies contemporaneity). The presence of burials suggests that the site may have had ecclesiastical associations, though no structure that could be identified as a church has been found. The excavated remains can be compared to a similar site excavated by Margaret Gowen at Colp, c. 4km north of Laytown (Excavations 1988, 31–2), where part of a large ditched enclosure (containing B and E ware) was subsequently used as a cemetery; at Colp most of the burials were found within a penannular ditched enclosure (O’Brien 1992, 133; 1993, 98).

Dúchas has recommended extensive excavation of the site before development takes place; the developers are currently assessing their options, and it is probable that further excavation will take place in 2001.

14C dates from ring-ditch excavated in 1999
Two samples of animal bone from the fill of the ring-ditch were submitted for radiocarbon dating. Sample 1 (UCD-146), from the upper fill (F2), is dated to 2075±50 BP; it has a maximum calibrated range of 206 cal. BC to 57 cal. AD (95% certainty). Sample 2 (UCD-147), from the lower fill (F10), is dated to 2410±80 BP and has a maximum calibrated range from 798 to 212 cal. BC (95% certainty).

The results indicate that the lower fill of the ring-ditch was deposited in the Late Bronze Age or Early Iron Age. The upper fill was deposited between the 2nd century BC and the middle of the 1st century AD. The significance of these results is that it places the construction of this monument in a period when there are few other dated archaeological monuments in the country. The dating also reveals that two quite separate phases of activity occurred at this site during the Iron Age.

References
King, H.A. 1999 Excavations on the Fourknocks Ridge, Co. Meath. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 99C, 157–98.
O’Brien, E. 1992 Pagan and Christian burial in Ireland during the first millennium AD: continuity and change. In N. Edwards and A. Lane (eds), The early church in Wales and the west, 130–7. Oxbow Monograph 16. Oxford.
O’Brien, E. 1993 Contacts between Ireland and Anglo-Saxon England in the seventh century. Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History 6, 93–102.

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