2001:960 - DONORE 2, Donore, Meath

The site was discovered during monitoring along the line of the Northern Motorway, Contract 7 (Drogheda Bypass). It was in an area of firm ground on a north-facing slope rising up from the River Boyne. When first uncovered by mechanical excavator the site appeared as a scattering of small subsoil-cut features, including one possible structural slot-trench, grouped within an area measuring 40m east–west by 50m.

The distribution of archaeological features across the site formed no discernible pattern. Two groups of features, which in the absence of artefactual evidence cannot be identified as contemporary, were excavated. These two groups were situated in the north-eastern and south-western corners of the site. A minimum distance of over 10m separated the two groups of features and the rest of the site appeared to be archaeologically sterile.

The south-western group consisted of ten subsoil-cut features grouped within an area approximately 15m east–west by 10m. Most of these features were irregular in plan, with gently sloping sides and uneven or rounded bases. The morphology of two features was relatively post-hole-like. These features, which were 0.15m and 0.25m deep respectively, were both roughly circular or oval with sheer sides and flat bases. The stratigraphy of their fills did not, however, support a structural interpretation, nor was there any other surviving structural evidence in the immediate vicinity.

Although more than half of the features in this group contained varying amounts of charcoal, none of them could be directly interpreted as hearths or showed any sign of burning in situ. One feature, which was suboval in plan, 0.27m deep and with a maximum diameter of 0.9m, was filled with a burnt stone and charcoal-rich deposit which may have represented the dumped residue of an open fire. The fills of two other rounded features, C4 and C26, also contained quantities of burnt stone and charcoal. No diagnostic artefacts were retrieved from these features. One finely struck flint flake from a prepared core, with a modern fracture, was retrieved from the topsoil in this area.

The north-eastern group consisted of sixteen subsoil-cut features grouped within an area measuring approximately 30m north–south by 20m. In common with the features in the south-western group, the fills of over half of these features contained varying amounts of charcoal. None of them, however, contained traces of burnt or heat-shattered stone such as that removed from features in the south-western group.

This group of features was artefactually richer than those to the south-west. Traces of burnt bone were recovered from the fill of a shallow possible rubbish-pit situated at the south-east of the group. A flake of struck flint was recovered from the upper fill of an irregular, steep-sided feature.

More pieces of flint and some poorly preserved sherds of apparently prehistoric pottery were recovered from the largely sterile, grey silty clay fill of a slot-trench excavated at the centre of this group. The profile and dimensions of the slot varied widely from a shallow, almost bowl-shaped ‘U’ with a minimum depth of 0.12m to a more sheer-sided near-‘V’ profile with a maximum depth of 0.29m. It was 0.31–0.6m wide. The function of the slot remains unclear. It appeared to be a structural slot-trench encompassing a roughly oval area with a subrectangular annexe to the west. These areas, which appeared to form an annexed or figure-of-eight structure, had combined dimensions of 7.75m east–west by 5.8m. However, little further structural evidence supported this appearance. No evidence of stake- or post-holes was uncovered at the base of, or within the areas encompassed by, the slot. No interruption suggestive of an entrance occurred at any point in the sweep of either arc. At the extreme western side of the smaller arc a deposit of medium-sized stones contained within the fill was removed from the trench. These stones could be tentatively interpreted as a drainage feature at the threshold of a slot-built structure. Immediately to the north of these stones a small concentration of charcoal, which could represent an accumulation of charcoal blown through the possible entrance from an internal hearth, directly overlay the upper fill of the slot. Only one internal feature (C52) was uncovered within the possible structure. The survival of only one internal feature may be the result of post-depositional truncation or an original absence of internal supports. The internal feature was a shallow, subcircular, bowl-like pit 0.15m in depth with a maximum diameter of 0.5m. It was filled with a compact sterile sandy clay which revealed no indication of the feature’s function.

The presence of an apparently structural slot combined with randomly scattered subsoil cuts, some containing burnt bone, charcoal, burnt and heat-shattered stone with some flakes of struck flint and sherds of prehistoric pottery, suggests that Donore 2 may have been an occupation site at one or several stages in prehistory. Immediately downhill of the site, 200m to the north, a large, possibly Bronze Age enclosure (Sheephouse, see No. 1057, Excavations 2001, 00E0811) has recently been excavated by Dermot Nelis, and 300m further to the north an enclosure site dating from the Neolithic to the Iron Age or Early Christian period (Sheephouse, see No. 1056, Excavations 2001, 00E810) has also been recently excavated by Declan Moore.