County: Down Site name: EDENDERRY
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: AE/06/46
Author: Norman Crothers, for ADS Ltd.
Site type: Burnt mound
Period/Dating: Prehistoric (12700 BC-AD 400)
ITM: E 708137m, N 842887m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.323245, -6.337683
This site consisted of two spreads of burnt-mound material sealed by a 0.45m-thick alluvium layer. The larger spread, which measured 14.6m north-west/south-east by 7.6m and survived to a depth of 0.5m, proved to be a burnt mound made up of three layers. The basal layer was sticky grey clay with occasional fist-sized burnt stones that had been sealed by a thin layer of redeposited orange glacial till. These two slightly mounded layers lay within a 0.2m-deep subsoil-cut depression and the entire mound and surrounding area was buried below a 0.32m-thick layer of heavy, sticky black clay with frequent fist-sized burnt stones. A 0.45m-deep channel had been cut around the north-west and west sides of the depression and continued to the south, forming a relatively level platform. Two subcircular pits, with diameters of 0.58m and 0.42m by 0.2m and 0.22m deep respectively, had been cut into the south-west edge of the depression. A circular stake-hole was situated immediately to the north-east of the smaller (south) pit. A pair of post-holes or small pits lay on the north-west edge of the level platform, 0.2m to the east, with a similar pair 2.5m and a group of nine small stake-holes and one larger one further to the south-east. A small pit and three stake-holes lay 3.6m to the north and there was an isolated stake-hole 1.8m from the south-east edge of the platform. The remaining features associated with this burnt mound consisted of a complex of 41 stake-holes situated on the south-west edge of the large depression on the east side of the water channel.
The smaller spread, which measured 3m north–south by 3.6m, lay 5m to the north of the burnt mound at the western limit of the working width. The removal of the burnt-mound material revealed a series of subsoil-cut features. The largest feature, and the apparent focus of activity at this part of the site, was a linear gully or elongated pit that extended beyond the western limit of excavation. The feature, which was aligned north–south, had excavated dimensions of 2.37m north–south by 0.9m by 0.4m deep. Associated with this feature was a complex of five pits and sixteen stake-holes.
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