County: Mayo Site name: BRACKLAGH/CLOONBOOKEIGHTER
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 102:28 Licence number: 01E0740
Author: Bernard Guinan,
Site type: Excavation - miscellaneous
Period/Dating: Prehistoric (12700 BC-AD 400)
ITM: E 507161m, N 801927m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.958313, -9.414633
Testing in advance of pipe routeing took place here in July 2001, as part of the Lough Mask Regional Water Supply Scheme Stage III (see No. 918, Excavations 2001, 01E0314). The area to be tested was a strip of land 120m by 15m and c. 30m from an earthwork.
The area was tested using a mechanical digger and stripped stratigraphically of sod and topsoil to sterile boulder clay. The topsoil, a mid-brown clay mixed with boulder clay, was c. 0.2m deep. This very mixed topsoil was the result of land reclamation and was probably machine-deposited to prepare the ground for pasture. Very deep peat (up to a maximum of 2.5m) was revealed below the topsoil. Land drainage pipes were set in 1m-deep gravel-filled trenches. All peat deposits were removed, exposing a sterile, light grey, compressed glacial clay. The impervious material was very pliable and consistent across the test area.
Although no deposits or features of an archaeological nature were unearthed, two pieces of struck chert débitage were recovered.
Coosan, Athlone, Co. Westmeath
