2002:1198 - KILTENAN SOUTH (BGE 3/62/2), Limerick

This site was examined as part of Bord Gáis Éireann’s Pipeline to the West. Part of a possible prehistoric house was excavated in an area limited by pipeline works. It is certain that the site extended beyond the baulk into the adjacent field and possible that additional deposits were destroyed by the surrounding construction activities.

The excavated features comprised two lengths of gully, 33 post-holes, 70 stake-holes, twelve pits and a hearth. Few stratigraphic relationships were seen between the features, and little artefactual material was recovered. The site is therefore discussed as a single phase of activity.

Gully 37 probably represented part of either a rough foundation trench for the walls of the house or a drip gully surrounding an entirely post-built structure. The gully was curvilinear, 4.2m long, 0.98–1.6m wide and at most 0.2m deep, with an irregular, shallow profile. The southern end of the gully met a pit or large post-hole (233), which may have been related. The northern end was extremely ephemeral, and the gully may originally have continued farther to the north-west. A second length of gully was unrelated.

Most of the 33 post-holes were 0.1–0.4m wide and 0.05–0.36m deep. Many were oval in plan; their profiles varied, but most had steep sides and flat bases. The exceptions were two large post-holes to the south of Gully 37. These measured 1.05m by 0.82m by 0.6m deep and 0.9m by 0.76m by 0.27m deep. It seems plausible that these two post-holes held large timbers forming a south-east-facing entrance to the structure, 1–1.5m wide.

A total of 70 stake-holes were recorded. Although not all were circular, they ranged in diameter from 0.04m to 0.18m and were 0.02–0.3m deep. Most were situated inside the building. A particular concentration was noted in the vicinity of the pits excavated against the baulk at the south-west, and some of these may represent internal structures associated with these features.

Of the twelve pits, four were only partially excavated, as they were situated against the limit of excavation, within the structure. These four pits measured 0.3–0.86m and were 0.14–0.38m deep, with irregular profiles and dark fills containing a moderate amount of charcoal. Also within the arc of the possible house were two subrectangular pits with stake-holes in their sides. Three oval pits with bowl-shaped profiles lay outside the building. Three shallow scoops may not have been intentionally created.

A patch of oxidised, natural, silty clay marked the location of a possible hearth. This amorphous area measured c. 0.7m by 0.6m. The position of this patch would have placed the hearth off-centre within the house.

Only six artefacts were recovered during excavation: two chert flakes, a small quartz crystal, two fragments of ceramic material that may be pottery or daub, and a collection of burnt bone fragments. It is hoped that sufficient charcoal will be recovered from sieved samples to provide at least one radiocarbon determination.

It appears that a small part of a prehistoric house was revealed on this site. The evidence is ambiguous, and the layout of the structure is not entirely clear from the excavated section, but extrapolation of the curvilinear gully would give a circle with a diameter of c. 12m, of which less than half was revealed. The house may have been constructed with a combination of trenches and post-holes, perhaps with a continuation of the wall to the north-west of the surviving gully being marked by a double line of post-/stake-holes, in which case the diameter of the structure may have been up to 20m.