County: Meath Site name: NEWTOWN
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 00E0613
Author: Conor Brady
Site type: Prehistoric site - flint scatter
Period/Dating: Neolithic (4000BC-2501 BC)
ITM: E 671136m, N 798763m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.818190, -6.610720
An excavation of a flint scatter was carried out over a six-day period from 29 August 2000 at Newtown, Co. Meath. This work was carried out as part of a PhD study examining the evidence for earlier prehistoric settlement in the Boyne Valley. Phosphate and resistivity surveys were also carried out in two separate areas of the field.
The flint scatter was first discovered in 1998 during a programme of systematic archaeological field-walking of the ploughzone. The field was walked on a 20% sampling basis using a paced-out grid. While there was a general background scatter of material found over the whole surface of the field, there was a marked concentration in the south-eastern corner. A transverse arrowhead collected as part of this scatter suggests that the activity that led to the formation of the scatter might date to the later Neolithic period. There was also a minor concentration of material at the north-eastern end of the field.
Seventeen 1m2 test-pits were dug in two separate areas to establish whether the distribution pattern of material recovered from the field surface reflected the distribution of material suspended within the ploughzone. A secondary question being examined was whether there are any marked differences in the nature of the material occurring at the surface as compared to that lower down in the ploughzone. A third aim was to examine whether there was any trace of features remaining cut into the subsoil surface that might be related to the activity that led to the initial formation of the scatter.
The test-pits were laid out on a 10m grid. All were hand-dug through the ploughsoil to the subsoil surface, and the spoil was passed through a 5mm mesh sieve for maximum recovery of artefacts. This is considered to have been essential to the success of the exercise, as most of the finds recovered were recognised only during the sieving process.
In the area of the scatter, the distribution of the material recovered from the surface during field-walking was almost exactly mirrored by the distribution of material from the test-pits. The clearest difference observed between the two sets of data is that the average size of finds excavated from the test-pits was much smaller than those picked from the field surface. Without having used a sieve, most of this material would not have been recognised or recovered. A narrow linear feature was discovered at the base of Test-pit 8, which, because it ran parallel to the direction of ploughing, was interpreted as being the base of a particularly deep plough furrow. The bases of Test-pits 13 and 14 were spreads of oxidised soil, possibly indicating an area of intense burning in antiquity.
2 Leland Place, Stockwell Street, Drogheda, Co. Louth
