County: Mayo Site name: CÉIDE FIELDS, GLENULTRA/RATHLACKAN
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 6:32(02) Licence number: 05E0861
Author: Erika Guttmann and Paul Stevens, School of Human & Environmental Sciences, Department of Archaeology, University of Reading, Reading RG6 6AB.
Site type: Prehistoric
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 498466m, N 840734m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.305259, -9.560117
A second season of archaeological environmental research investigations was carried out in July 2005 (see also Excavations 2004, No. 1137, 04E0970), at the Céide Fields, near Belderrig and Rathlackan, north-west Co. Mayo, in Glenultra (Area 3) and Rathlackan (Area 4) townlands and Glenglassera. The aim of the excavation was to investigate prehistoric land use and management, centred around the Neolithic landscape of the Céide Fields, using a range of geo-archaeological techniques.
Excavation of 30 test-pits was undertaken to collect environmental samples of pre-bog buried soils for scientific analysis. Buried soils of up to 0.15m were identified beneath up to 0.8m of peat.
The aims of this season of fieldwork were:
1) To provide further replication for last year’s samples, in order to strengthen the case for distinct differences between the arable and pastoral land.
2) To test the hypothesis that the area around Test-pit E, a supposed blank area between the Céide Fields and Belderrig, was cultivated.
3) To compare the soils within enclosures with soils in the fields that contain the enclosures.
4) To include the site at Rathlackan in the analyses.
The samples have been air-dried and sieved to 2mm, and the analyses are now underway. The results of these are not yet available, but the fieldwork has produced one interesting result. Test-pit 24 was excavated in order to trace the extent of the area of high phosphate, together with Test-pits 22, 23 and 25. The discovery of possible ard marks in Test-pit 24 reinforces the phosphate data in suggesting that this area, far from being a ‘blank area’ between blocks of fields, was actually farmed as arable land.
This research project was conceived and headed up by Dr Erika Guttmann, Environmental Archaeologist, University of Reading, and the work is fully funded by the Department of Archaeology, University of Reading. In consultation with the National Monuments Section of the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, an excavation licence was applied for and issued to Paul Stevens.
