County: Meath Site name: KILSHARVAN 17, Kilsharvan
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 01E0192
Author: Ian Russell, Archaeological Consultancy Services Ltd.
Site type: Pit
Period/Dating: Bronze Age (2200 BC-801 BC)
ITM: E 670056m, N 810058m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.673397, -6.350355
The site was exposed at chainage 19425 in the western portion of the motorway in the townland of Kilsharvan during monitoring of topsoil-stripping carried out during groundworks associated with the construction of Contract 7 of the Northern Motorway Project. The site was identified as a deposit of organic soil with burnt stone and charcoal and a possible pit/post-hole.
It consisted of a suboval pit measuring 1.04m in length, 0.93m in width and 0.18m in depth, filled with a humic dark grey–black silty clay containing moderate inclusions of charcoal, burnt stone and occasional fragments of burnt bone. A radiocarbon determination of 2880 ± 40 BP (1190–930 cal. BC) was obtained from the fill, which dates the pit to the middle–late Bronze Age. No further archaeological features or deposits were exposed and no finds were recovered.
It is likely that the pit represents an outlying feature of a potential site to the south of the proposed motorway. However, it may also represent outlying activity from the nearby Bronze Age enclosure at Kilsharvan 16 (No. 1001, Excavations 2001, 1000–390 cal. BC).
21 Boyne Business Park, Drogheda, Co. Louth
