County: Armagh Site name: THE DORSEY, Dorsey
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 28:8 Licence number: AE/02/38
Author: Declan Hurl, Built Heritage, and Cormac McSparron, Queen’s University
Site type: Linear earthwork
Period/Dating: Iron Age (800 BC-AD 339)
ITM: E 695140m, N 819238m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.113393, -6.544879
An excavation was carried out at the Dorsey, Dorsey, Co. Armagh, from 10 June to 2 August 2002. The site is immediately to the north of the southern rampart of the Dorsey, west of the modern Bonds Road, at the gap in the monument known as the South Gate. An area 20m by 20m (Area 1), with a 30m access road (Area 2), had been mechanically stripped of topsoil under supervision. This work had identified a number of archaeological features.
In Area 1 a large palisade trench was found running north–south for c. 20m. Its depth varied from 0.7m to 1m. The base of the trench had impressions of the bases of posts in it. A secondary series of posts had been inserted into a section of the palisade trench, two of which had been burnt in situ. A short section of a second, similar palisade was found running parallel to and c. 3m east of the first palisade trench. This palisade was cut by a shallow roasting pit filled with charcoal-rich soil, burnt bone fragments and burnt stones. A number of shallow post-hole bases and two slightly curving bands of coloured soil ‘enclosed’ the western end of the pit. The pit, post-hole bases and bands of coloured earth may have been the remains of a light structure.
In Area 2, at the eastern end of the site, just a few metres from the modern road, was a shallow ditch c. 1m deep. At the western extremity of the ditch was a palisade c. 0.75m deep that contained four post-pipe voids within the 1.5m width excavated. To the west of this palisade was a second, smaller gully, which had contained insubstantial timbers.
The excavation revealed three palisades and two gullies that ran approximately in line with the modern Bonds Road. Given the suggestion that the modern road is ancient in origin, possibly the Sligh Midluachra, it is possible that these features were aligned along the ancient road. It is anticipated that scientific dating methods will show that the palisades date to the Iron Age.
This could have implications for the interpretation of the function of the Dorsey. It is possible that these palisades and lighter wooden fences were used to control movement of people or cattle. This could have been for a domestic, military or ritual purpose, and they may relate to functional or ritual divisions of the use of space within the monument.
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