County: Sligo Site name: CALTRAGH (Site 1)
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 00E0816
Author: Sébastien Joubert
Site type: Field system
Period/Dating: Prehistoric (12700 BC-AD 400)
ITM: E 569029m, N 834783m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.260941, -8.475355
Three archaeological sites were excavated in the townland of Caltragh during the course of the Caltragh Sewerage Scheme. Sligo Corporation requested a field study of the areas adjoining a prehistoric site, which was under excavation in relation to the Sewerage Scheme and would be affected by a proposed relief road. Three definite and five potential archaeological sites were identified during the survey. Following the field study, pre-development testing was commissioned by Sligo Corporation to determine the extent and nature of archaeology in relation to the proposed Sligo Inner Relief Road.
Site 1 was a noticeable, raised, linear earthen bank containing stones and boulders. It extended in a north-east/south-west direction, parallel to an existing modern boundary. One test-trench, 6m by 1m and aligned east–west, was opened across the bank on 25 October 2000. A drystone wall, sealed by a peaty material, was exposed in the trench. The wall was c. 3m wide and was made up of large rounded and sub-rounded granite rocks. It was difficult to establish if this wall had collapsed or remained in situ. It was disturbed on the east by the modern boundary but was associated on the west with a ditch feature. This ditch feature, which ran parallel to the stone wall, was 0.57m wide and 0.3m deep.
Considering the presence of similar walls in the adjacent fields, and their stratigraphic relationships with prehistoric features, it was considered that this wall may be of prehistoric date and was related to a large field system.
Seamount, Upper Rosses, Rosses Point, Co. Sligo
