County: Sligo Site name: CALTRAGH (Site 5)
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 00E0815 ext.
Author: Sébastien Joubert
Site type: Fulacht fia and Industrial site
Period/Dating: Neolithic (4000BC-2501 BC)
ITM: E 569039m, N 834820m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.261267, -8.475208
Part of the Neolithic site excavated during the Caltragh Sewerage Scheme was also within the proposed take for the Inner Relief Road. The impact on the site would be direct and complete. Testing was required to determine the full extent of the site beyond the corridor of the pipeline. Eleven trenches were opened mechanically, from October to November 2000, to the north and south of the site, within the land-take of the Caltragh Sewerage Scheme. All the trenches varied in dimensions.
Archaeological features and deposits were exposed in most of the trenches opened along the site. They appeared to be a continuation of the features exposed and excavated along part of the pipe corridor (see Excavations 2000, No. 873).
All the features exposed during the testing had been partially investigated but left in situ. The excavation of part of the site within the pipe corridor revealed a possible working/industrial area. The features exposed outside the pipe corridor could be related to settlement and domestic occupation. A ditch feature was exposed in one of the trenches. This feature was c. 2m wide and was surrounded by an extensive series of post- and stake-holes.
A disturbed fulacht fiadh/burnt spread was identified and exposed to the south of the pipe corridor. It was truncated by a modern laneway on the south. The full dimensions of the burnt spread remain unknown. Various pits and linear features were exposed in all the other trenches.
Archaeological testing proved the dense presence of archaeological features to the north and south of the pipe corridor. The full extent of archaeology still remains unknown.
Seamount, Upper Rosses, Rosses Point, Co. Sligo
