County: Laois Site name: JAMESTOWN 2
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 03E0735
Author: Jonathan Dempsey, Archaeological Consultancy Services Ltd.
Site type: Pit
Period/Dating: Undetermined
ITM: E 660322m, N 707346m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.113263, -7.098969
Identified during monitoring of the construction topsoil-strip of the M7 Heath–Mayfield Motorway Scheme (No. 1051, Excavations 2003, 03E0623), Jamestown 2 consisted of a subcircular pit with rounded corners measuring 1m north–south by 1m by 0.1m deep. The smooth sides were convex and sloped gradually to a flat base which sloped from north to south. The pit was cut into the natural subsoil, which was a firm, green/grey, silty clay with frequent sub-rounded stones, up to 0.15m in length. The fill comprised a friable black silty clay with frequent charcoal flecks, occasional larger fragments of charcoal and occasional subangular stone fragments, up to 50mm in length, some of which were heat-fractured and fire-reddened. Within this context, occasional lenses of stiff, heavily oxidised, orange/red silty clay were visible. No finds were recovered from this context.
This feature is interpreted as a heavily truncated pit with a fill of burnt-mound-like material. It was located 100m to the north-north-west of two burnt mounds preserved in situ (No. 1069, Excavations 2003, 03E0554, John Tierney) and to the east of a complex of archaeological features resolved by Patricia Lynch (03E0679).
Unit 21, Boyne Business Park, Greenhills, Drogheda, Co. Louth
