County: Mayo Site name: CLOONBAUL/KILBRIDE
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 05E0833
Author: Eamonn Cotter, for Archaeological Consultancy Services Ltd.
Site type: Timber circle and Charcoal-making site
Period/Dating: Multi-period
ITM: E 527609m, N 778926m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.754923, -9.097699
The site was excavated in July 2005 as part of the programme of resolution of archaeological sites on the route of the proposed Galway–Mayo gas pipeline.
The principal feature of the site was a circular structure measuring 8m in diameter, forming a ring of nineteen post-holes, within which four large post-holes formed a rectangular pattern. The main entrance to the structure faced south and an east–west row of post-holes 1.5m to the south seemed designed to form an outer straight façade in front of the entrance. There appears also to have been another entrance to the north, directly opposite the first. There was no evidence for an internal hearth, but a small area of burnt clay c. 11m to the south of the structure may have been the remains of an external hearth. Other features around that burnt area did not form any coherent pattern but included a small pit which yielded some burnt bone and seventeen sherds of pottery. Pottery from the site has been identified as grooved ware, and radiocarbon dates span the period 3010–2470 cal BC. On that basis, the site is interpreted as a Late Neolithic timber circle.
Two rectangular charcoal-burning pits were also excavated, one c. 100m to the south of the house and one c. 200m to the north. One measured 1.6m by 0.8m by 0.4m deep, the other 3.2m by 1m by 0.4m deep. One of these was radiocarbon-dated to the early medieval period.
Unit 21, Boyne Business Park, Greenhills, Drogheda, Co. Louth
