County: Galway Site name: CARAUN MORE
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: A024/17, E2072
Author: Tamás Peterváry, for CRDS Ltd.
Site type: Fulacht fia
Period/Dating: Bronze Age (2200 BC-801 BC)
ITM: E 564041m, N 725343m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.277192, -8.539153
This excavation was part of the archaeological investigations associated with the proposed N6 Galway to Ballinasloe road scheme. The site was detected during test-trenching and was excavated during March and April 2006. Work was commissioned by Galway County Council and the National Roads Design Office and sponsored by the National Roads Authority.
The burnt mound was located within the marginal area of a bog. Although radiocarbon dates are not yet available, this site type generally dates to the Bronze Age.
The identified archaeological features consisted of a burnt deposit, one pit, one possible hearth and four post-holes. The burnt deposit, which lay directly on the subsoil, was sub-oval in plan (4.9m by 3.6m by maximum 0.1m deep) and consisted of a sandy silt containing a great amount of charcoal and heat-shattered stone fragments. The post-holes were arranged in an arc encircling the burnt deposit (0.4m in diameter by 0.4m deep), which covered a single shallow pit (0.67m by 0.5m by 0.05m deep), possibly a filled-up natural undulation in the subsoil. The hearth, located to the immediate east of the trough, was a circular, shallow feature (1.65m by 1m by 0.1m deep).
The trough, a north-west/south-east-orientated pit, was subrectangular in plan (2.6m by 1.6m by 1.3m deep) and had steep sloping sides and a flat base. The lower fill of the pit derived from the burnt deposit to the north-east and was sealed by a natural accumulation of dark-brown peat. The trough was divided into two halves by a wattle screen that joined the wattle lining in the north-western half of the pit.
A wooden paddle (or shovel), c. 0.3m in length, with a subrectangular, slightly concave blade and a short shaft, some hazel-nut shells and two pieces of animal bone were found in the trough.
Unit 4, Dundrum Business Park, Dundrum, Dublin 14
