County: Meath Site name: RATHMULLAN: Site 14
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 01E0293
Author: Emmet Stafford for IAC Ltd.
Site type: Burnt mound
Period/Dating: Prehistoric (12700 BC-AD 400)
ITM: E 706405m, N 774460m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.708975, -6.388235
The site was discovered during testing along the line of the Northern Motorway, Contract 7 (Drogheda Bypass). It was in an area of low ground between two ridges, one to the south and the other overlooking it to the north. When first uncovered the site appeared as a badly denuded burnt spread covering an area of approximately 16m by 16m.
The burnt material was badly disturbed by early modern furrow cultivation. There were at least twenty furrows cutting the area under investigation. Other modern cuts included one box drain and a pipe drain running east–west to the north and to the south of the charcoal-stained material. The cut of a probable field boundary was excavated to the north of the site.
Three rectangular or subrectangular features, which have been tentatively identified as troughs, were excavated in the immediate vicinity of the burnt spread. Three deeper, waterlogged features may have functioned as wells.
It appears that, following their original excavation, the three well cuts were left open, allowing woodland debris to accumulate toward their bases. These organic deposits were overlain by layers of silt and upper fills which appeared to have been intentionally dumped into the features.
Two of the possible troughs contained heat-shattered stone, which may represent their final uses. The third trough feature contained a proportion of burnt stone but largely contained a homogeneous silty fill indicative of a period of abandonment.
Most of the larger cut features contained a very fine blue-grey silt and patches of this were found throughout the site. This material appears to have accumulated during a prolonged period of time in which the site lay beneath standing water. The location of the site certainly rendered it prone to flooding in modern times and the natural geology does not allow for easy draining.
Removal of the burnt spread revealed a number of stake-holes and small rounded pits scattered across the site. The presence of a whitish-grey charcoal-stained clay at the centre of the site appeared to suggest that the natural geology in this area had been burnt in situ. An amorphous patch of firm reddish silty clay (approximately 0.8m x 0.5m) towards the centre of this area appeared to be the remains of a hearth or fire-spot.
Some pieces of struck flint and a leaf-shaped arrowhead were recovered from the site. No pottery sherds or other diagnostic finds were retrieved from the features excavated.
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