County: Kildare Site name: KILL HILL
Sites and Monuments Record No.: KD020-022---- and KD020-022002- Licence number: 03E1569
Author: Elizabeth Connolly, for Irish Archaeological Consultancy Ltd.
Site type: Enclosure and Flat cemetery
Period/Dating: Bronze Age (2200 BC-801 BC)
ITM: E 694730m, N 723429m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.252758, -6.580410
Site No. 2 at Kill Hill, Co. Kildare, was identified during centre-line testing for the N7 Naas Road Widening and Interchanges Scheme (No. 930, Excavations 2003, 03E1265) in August 2003. The site was fully excavated in November 2003. The site was situated at the base of a slope to the north of Kill Hill, a Bronze Age enclosure. It was identified with three others in Kill Hill townland, two of which were also Bronze Age ritual sites, which with this one formed a line running roughly east–west.
The site was first identified as a subcircular penannular ditch filled with striking whitish-grey silty clay. The cut of the ditch was narrow, 0.33–0.47m wide, enclosing an area of 7m in diameter with terminals to the east. The ditch cut splayed to its widest at both terminals and left an uncut width of c. 2m between the two.
An area measuring approximately 30m by 30m was stripped of topsoil around the feature and a post-medieval stone field drain was the only other feature revealed in the vicinity. The ditch fill contained no finds and was, on average, 0.2m deep. There were no features recorded within the circular ditch. On preliminary analysis, considered in relation to the other two features excavated in the vicinity, this feature appears to be a Bronze Age ritual site.
8 Dungar Terrace, Dún Laoghaire, Co. Dublin
