2002:0480 - CARRCIKMINES GREAT (Site 56), Dublin

This site was found during the monitoring of topsoil-stripping under licence 01E1229 before the construction of the South-Eastern Motorway. It was of irregular shape, measuring c. 110m north-west/south-east by 40m, and was divided into four areas, A–D. The area was very wet in places, especially where there were springs. Iron pan throughout the site indicated that the area had suffered intermittent wetting and drying. To combat this problem in the past, two stone-lined drains had been built through Areas C and D.

The site was at the break in slope between the lower foothills of the Dublin Mountains and the coastal plain. The land rose very gently to the south-east, to a low ridge c. 0.5km away, and more steeply to the south-west. It continued to rise in this direction to a height of 161m at the summit of a hill.

Area A had a ditch, several cut features and a fire-pit; Area B was the burnt mound with associated pits and trough; Area C had a trough-like feature and pits; and Area D contained a drain and a roadway with a metalled surface. It is not possible to determine at this stage whether the activities occurring in the different areas were contemporaneous.

In Area A, C68 was a fire-pit in the far eastern area of the site. It was circular and c. 1m in diameter. A U-shaped ditch, C177, meandered through the western part of Area A from the northern to the southern baulk. Four sections were dug through the ditch; a piece of late pottery was found in one of its fills. It had several fills and a possible causeway through it about halfway along its length.

Area B, between Areas A and C, was defined by the burnt mound. The natural subsoil had been stained a mottled dark orange/black by intermittent wetting and subsequent leaching of minerals from the mound. A subrectangular trough (C234), 1.8–1.9m long, 1.1m wide at the northern end and 1.3m at the southern, was found under the mound. It was filled with mound material in which were several sherds of a single but incomplete food vessel of the tripartite bowl variant. Anna Brindley has suggested that the vessel dates from 2000–1900 BC.

A low ridge of material was found to the south-west of the trough. It formed a barrier to material falling into the trough and may have been made by compacting the excavated soil from the trough. Other stone deposits along the southern and eastern sides of the area suggest that a stone feature retained the mound.

A small oval area of scorched earth was found 0.4m to the north of the trough. The soil was scorched to a depth of 50–100mm. The burnt material had been mixed with the general spreads of the burnt mound and removed with them. Three stake-holes were found to the west of the trough. They were c. 0.1m in diameter and 70–100mm deep. Two pits containing black material were found to the north of the trough.

The blackest spread of the burnt mound was concentrated to the north of the trough. It was roughly circular, measuring 10.75m by 8.6m, and varied in depth from 0.1m to 0.19m. It contained frequent decayed granite and quartzite and a moderate amount of charcoal flecks. The high coarse sand content of the spread resulted from the decay of the granite stones in the fill. The charcoal seems to have had a similar fate and was perhaps crushed and washed away by rainwater. Other contexts were identified above this; they contained less black material the further from the centre of the mound they were.

Four pits were found in a row 11m to the north of the trough-like feature C294 (below). They contained varying concentrations of different-sized stones. Burning does not seem to have occurred in any of them. The stones found in them vary in size and seem to have experienced weathering, either by heat or by water. Some of the material in the pits appears to have been derived from weathered granite, being so weathered as to be reduced to sand and gravel. Charcoal in the fills indicated that burning of some sort occurred, though not necessarily in the pits themselves. It is difficult to say what these pits were used for. Were the stones deliberately placed in the pits or were they part of the natural build-up of material? The former seems more likely. It will not be possible to determine whether these pits are contemporary with the burnt mound to the east until 14C dating is carried out.

To the south of the four pits was a rectangular trough-like feature, C294. It was surrounded on its northern, western and southern sides by a metalled surface of rounded and sub-rounded pebbles. The surface had been damaged by machine activity; the surviving area measured 5m by 4m. The pit measured 2m by 1.17m by 0.26–0.32m deep. It had animal disturbance on its north-eastern side. The sides had a gradual slope, and the base was flat. The pit had several fills, one of which gave the impression that it was decayed planking that had deteriorated to a fine black silt.

The material in this trough had experienced burning and decay. It may have been lined with wooden planks. It is difficult to say whether burning had occurred in the trough or burnt material had been dumped into it. A timber-lined trough with burnt stones suggests that the stones were used to heat water.

C76 was found 1.9m north-east of the trough-like feature, along the edge of a large area of iron pan. It was a shallow, bowl-shaped, circular pit measuring 0.6m by 0.7m with a maximum depth of 0.1m. Eight stake-holes were found along the internal perimeter of the pit. They were of similar shape and size: round and pointed, 25mm by 30mm by 25mm deep to 60mm by 50mm by 40mm deep. The pit had three fills.

A shallow linear ditch was found on the eastern edge of the above activity. It ran roughly north–south and was truncated by an east–west-running stone-lined drain and disturbed by a machine rut. It was 9m long, 1m wide and 0.17–0.4m deep. It had a rounded northern end and an abrupt, flat southern end. Its base was flat.

C28 was a large clay deposit between the pit activity in Area C and the ditch in Area D. It either was deposited by water or had been waterlogged. It measured 15m north–south by 10m and was 50–100mm deep.

In the east of the site, in Area D, a gently curved feature was found stretching through the site in a south-eastward direction. Before excavation, it looked like a wide ditch that had a stone-lined drain inserted in it. Excavation revealed that there was a metalled surface under the drain and across the width of the feature. It has now been concluded that the metalling was the surface of a winding road and that a drain was later inserted in the material that had built up on the surface of the road. The stone-lined drain in Area C joined this at its southern end. A gully ran along the western length of the road, and another along the eastern. The latter did not run the entire length of the roadway but veered off to the east about halfway from its northern end.

Post-excavation work is continuing. It could not be determined whether the activities in the different areas were contemporaneous, as there were no stratigraphical relationships between them. Results from 14C dating may shed light on this. The pottery found in the trough dates the activity in Area B to the Bronze Age. Several other Bronze Age sites were in the vicinity, such as two burnt mounds to the south-east (Sites 79 and 78), burial sites, wedge tombs and settlement sites.

Wood Road, Cratloekeel, Cratloe, Co. Clare