County: Louth Site name: MELL 4
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 01E0067
Author: Kieran Campbell, for Valerie J. Keeley Ltd.
Site type: Fulacht fia
Period/Dating: Prehistoric (12700 BC-AD 400)
ITM: E 705738m, N 777392m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.735442, -6.397331
Excavations took place from 5 to 26 January 2001 on a fulacht fiadh uncovered in May 2000 during monitoring of topsoil-stripping for the Northern Motorway (Gormanston to Monasterboice). The site was in a boggy hollow between two east–west ridges on which extensive archaeological deposits were excavated as part of the same road scheme (Hill of Rath by Carmel Duffy, Excavations 2000, No. 687, 00E0088; Mell 3 by Thaddeus Breen, Excavations 2000, No. 696, and No. 870 above, 00E0631; and Mell 5 and 6 by the writer, Excavations 2000, Nos 697–8, 00E0945 and 00E0940).
The site came to light when burnt mound material was extruded from below the stripped ground surface by the weight of laden dumper trucks. A deposit of burnt stones in charcoal-stained silty clay lay in a 0.1m-thick spread, 10.5m east–west by 8m, and filled four pits excavated into the natural clay subsoil. Contractor’s earthworks had truncated the site to the west and wheel ruts had damaged two of the pits. Of these, Pit 016 was c. 1m in diameter and 0.48m deep, while Pit 018 survived as a linear cut 0.85m by 0.45m and 0.12m deep. A subcircular pit (020), 1.2m by 1.4m and 0.2m deep, had a lining of burnt stones on the base. The fill of a large shallow pit or scoop (025), 3m by 1.6m and 0.16m deep, produced a flint scraper and five waste flakes, three probably from the same nodule.
6 St Ultan’s, Laytown, Drogheda
