County: Wexford Site name: RAHEENAGURREN WEST (Site 26)
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: A003/044
Author: Thaddeus C. Breen for Valerie J. Keeley Ltd.
Site type: Burnt mound and Kiln - corn
Period/Dating: Multi-period
ITM: E 716419m, N 658066m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.661270, -6.279006
The site sloped down from a low ridge to a stream and included part of the former flood-plain of the stream. The earliest feature found was a palaeo-channel which ran approximately north–south across the site and extended into Site 27 (see No. 1670, Excavations 2005). This was consistent with the area being the flood-plain of an existing stream. It appears to pre-date any of the archaeological features and the fill was overlain by the adjacent burnt mounds. It was c. 5.5m wide and 0.6m deep.
Two isolated kidney-shaped pits were found. The first of these was 5m in length with a depth of 0.29m. The second was 4.38m in length and 0.19m deep. A number of sherds of Beaker pottery were found in the first, along with one sherd of early Neolithic pottery. There were no finds from the second pit.
Remains of three burnt mounds were found alongside the present stream, which ran along the western side of the excavation. Two of these had shallow rectangular troughs; the third, in which the mound itself still survived, had a deeper sub-oval pit, 1.95m by 1.7m in diameter, 0.46m deep, with associated post-holes on the surface immediately south-east of it, which formed three sides of a rectangle.
Nearby, on ground sloping upwards to the east, three kilns were found. Finds of charred cereal grains showed them to have been corn-drying kilns. One was a simple earth-cut bowl shape; the other two were partly stone-lined. The stratigraphical relationships between the kilns were complex. They were surrounded on three sides by a gully, 0.5m deep and 14.5m long, with a C-shaped plan.
Because of the position of Site 26, there had been a considerable build-up of both colluvial and alluvial deposits. The most recent archaeological feature, cut into the top of these, was a series of shallow spade-cultivation furrows, running in a north-east/south-west direction across the site.
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