County: Clare Site name: CLOONAGOWAN (BGE 3/6/6–7)
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 02E1339
Author: Emer Dennehy, for Margaret Gowen & Co. Ltd.
Site type: Cremation pit
Period/Dating: Bronze Age (2200 BC-801 BC)
ITM: E 538547m, N 686276m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.923790, -8.913899
BGE 3/6/6
The site was exposed during monitoring of topsoil-stripping along Section 3 of the Bord Gáis Éireann Pipeline to the West, from Goatisland, Co. Limerick, to Gort, Co. Galway, c. 150m south-east of the N18, south of Crusheen village. The site is on the summit of a small hill, and the land falls away gradually to the north, where there is an area of extensive bogland.
Activity at the site began with the excavation of a small, shallow pit, measuring 0.44m north–south by 0.46m, with a maximum depth of 0.16m. Into this pit was deposited a black, charcoal-rich, silty clay (C.3), with burnt bone comprising 2% of the fill. Deliberately included in this cremation material was a small, roughly worked, flint thumb scraper, 10mm thick and 23mm long.
The second filling of the pit took the form of a charcoal-rich, dark brown, clayey sand with 1% burnt bone. A feature of this layer was a grey and orange hue, indicating the presence of ash and burnt clay in the soil matrix.
It can be concluded that this site represents a single cremation pit. Large pieces of bone were recovered from C.3, indicating that the cremated remains were not crushed to a great extent. The results from the osteoarchaeological analysis of these bone fragments are pending. The quantity and size of the bone recovered, together with the flint thumb scraper, indicate that the site can be roughly dated to the Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age. To the south of the site is a further funerary/cremation pit (No. 145, Excavations 2002, 02E1334), with an associated possible structure, which illustrates the significance of this location.
BGE 3/6/7
This site is to the south-east of the N18 between Barefield and Crusheen. A large field drain/boundary ditch crossed the site from east to west and measured 13.6m by 1.55m by 0.53m deep. Also present were a number of plough furrows running roughly parallel to the ditch, indicating that they were contemporary with it. Overall, the site was of little or no archaeological significance.
2 Killiney View, Albert Road Lower, Glenageary, Co. Dublin
