2002:0840 - TRALEE: Meadowlands Hotel, Cloonalour, Kerry

Monitoring of groundworks was carried out before the construction of an extension to the hotel and a new carpark. The site lies near the northern edge of Tralee town, c. 1km outside the zone of archaeological potential, in an area urbanised in the last twenty years. The area monitored was a greenfield site, measuring 39m by 32m, immediately east of the hotel and bordered to north, south and east by housing. There are three monuments within 1km of the site.

Topsoil-stripping took place from 2 to 4 January 2002. The topsoil was a wet, very dark brown loam with a high content of modern rubbish, including red brick, glass and china. Three areas of possible archaeology were identified and cordoned off during these works. A fourth area of possible archaeology was identified on 11 January when waterlogged subsoil was scraped off the development area before hardcoring. Several other large pits were identified but were discounted as their fills consisted primarily of 20th-century waste.

Excavations took place from 11 to 18 January. Area 1, the westernmost, was the only one to contain more than one archaeological feature. Three pits and two possible small post- or stake-holes were excavated, all within 2–3m of each other. The pits were characterised by their stony fills, of which angular pieces of shattered stone formed up to 40%. Pit C9 was the only feature to have more than one fill. Two layers of clay, which may have been redeposited natural, overlay a siltier, lower fill. C8, a roughly circular pit, was the only feature in Area 1 to produce a find, a piece of glass of modern appearance, but its position near the top of the fill was not stratigraphically secure. However, the fill, C4, of a large, elongated pit, C13, yielded a fair amount of charcoal, including one fragment of carbonised hazelnut shell. The pits in Area 1 ranged from 0.13m to 0.25m deep but had probably been truncated by ploughing.

Area 2 consisted of a single, large, roughly circular pit. The fill was quite sterile. Area 3 contained a single pit with a charcoal-rich fill. Area 4 consisted of two parallel ditches and an area of burning. These features proved to be non-archaeological: a modern field boundary and a patch of fire-stained natural subsoil.

Little can be said with any confidence regarding the date or purpose of the features encountered. The recovery of a small glass fragment from the top of pit C8 may indicate a modern date for this feature, but the excavator is inclined to view this glass as probably intrusive, in agreement with the radiocarbon date given below. The third pit in Area 1 bore some similarity to the pit in Area 3 in terms of shape and size, as well as the stony fills, although the latter was far richer in charcoal than the former.

Two pits in Area 1 were close together and were accompanied by two stake-holes. These four features are likely to be contemporaneous, with the two stake-holes serving as supports for some superstructural elements associated with activity around the two pits.

Pits filled with burnt and/or shattered stone are quite a common feature of prehistoric archaeology in Ireland, with the quasi-ritual concept of ‘structured deposition’ being the most popular explanation for their formation. Indeed, several sites of prehistoric date in the Tralee area, such as that at Manor West, excavated by Laurence Dunne (Excavations 2000, No. 454, 00E0069), have produced very similar features. A small fragment of carbonised hazelnut shell from one of the pits in Area 1 may strengthen the possibility that these features are prehistoric. A single radiocarbon date was acquired from charcoal from C4 (but not the hazelnut shell). This gave a calibrated date range of 50 BC to AD 110 with 95% probability at 2 sigma. This date, falling as it does in the centre of the pre-Christian Iron Age, is unusual and unprecedented in the Lee Valley area.

3 Canal Place, Tralee, Co. Kerry