County: Antrim Site name: INISLOUGHIN (2)
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: AE/06/132
Author: Norman Crothers, for ADS Ltd.
Site type: Enclosure
Period/Dating: Neolithic (4000BC-2501 BC)
ITM: E 717402m, N 860953m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.483448, -6.188193
This site was excavated as part of the recently completed BGE (Northern Ireland) gas pipeline. This site consisted of a portion of a Neolithic palisade slot cut by two modern field boundaries. The larger section of the slot emerged from the northern limit of the excavation to the east of the modern field boundaries on a north–south alignment and turned to the south-west at its southern end. The exposed portion measured 22m long by 0.3–0.6m wide by 0.3–0.5m deep. The U-shaped stone-packed slot had near-vertical sides over most of its length, becoming gentler towards the southern end, with a generally flat base. The packing of sub-rounded and sub-angular medium-sized to large stones was overlain by mottled orangey-brown clayey silt with occasional charcoal flecks and staining which contained a substantial amount of Early Neolithic pottery and flints. This was in turn overlaid by brown clayey silt with occasional small sub-rounded stones and moderate charcoal flecking, again containing a great deal of Neolithic pottery and flint. The shorter portion of the slot to the west of the modern field boundaries measured 10m long by 0.3m wide by 0.3m deep. It had the same profile as the larger portion of the slot and it, too, had stone packing below mid-brown silty sand with occasional small pebbles and larger stones, which also produced a large amount of Neolithic pottery and some flint. The palisade had been cut by a circular pit that measured 0.3m in diameter by 0.1m deep and had a single fill of blackish-brown clayey silt with occasional charcoal flecks containing two sherds of pottery.
Situated c. 2.5m to the south was a second circular pit, 0.27m in diameter by 0.07m deep, with a single fill of blackish-brown gritty silt with small pebbles and gravel and frequent charcoal flecks. Two other pits that may have been associated with the palisade slot were also uncovered. The first, which measured 1.03m in diameter by 0.18m deep, was subcircular and was filled with charcoal-rich silty clay. The remaining circular pit measured 0.8m north–south by 0.7m by 0.25m deep with two fills. Its basal fill was charcoal-rich brownish-black gritty silt overlain by brownish-grey silty clay with occasional stones.
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