County: Limerick Site name: INCHINCLARE (BGE 3/71/2–3)
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 02E0552
Author: Kate Taylor, Margaret Gowen & Co. Ltd.
Site type: Pit and Burnt spread
Period/Dating: Prehistoric (12700 BC-AD 400)
ITM: E 553789m, N 636982m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.482300, -8.680320
This site was examined as part of Bord Gáis Éireann’s Pipeline to the West. A single pit and a small spread were excavated. The pit was almost perfectly circular, 0.8m in diameter, and was 0.28m deep, with steep sides and a concave base. Excavation revealed that the cut of the pit was carefully executed, with the sides and base smoothly finished in the natural geological deposits. The fill was a mid-grey/brown silty clay with a moderate amount of charcoal and occasional fire-cracked stones. The spread was 6m north-east of the pit. This material was an irregularly shaped patch of charcoal and oxidised, silty clay, 1.2m long, 0.5m wide and 0.03m thick. It is likely that this represents in situ burning.
No artefacts were recovered; however, a large amount of charcoal obtained from a sieved sample of the pit fill will be suitable for species identification and should be sufficient to provide a radiocarbon determination.
Interpretation of these isolated features is difficult. The cut of the pit indicates that a great deal of care went into its preparation, a feature that has been noted in the pits of Bronze Age cremation burials excavated elsewhere in County Limerick as part of the pipeline project (e.g. BGE 3/75/2, 3, 02E0498, see No. 1244, Excavations 2002). No cremated bone was recovered from this site, however, and the quantity of charcoal is not particularly high. There was no evidence of in situ burning in the pit, and, although the patch of burning 6m away may be related, the two features may not be contemporaneous. In the absence of absolute dating, the site is considered likely to be prehistoric in origin.
2 Killiney View, Albert Road Lower, Glenageary, Co. Dublin
