County: Galway Site name: KILLESCRAGH
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: A024/22, E2070
Author: Ken Curran, for CRDS Ltd.
Site type: Road - road/trackway and Burnt mound
Period/Dating: Multi-period
ITM: E 563264m, N 725253m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.276331, -8.550790
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 in April–July 2006. Work was commissioned by Galway County Council and the National Roads Design Office and sponsored by the National Roads Authority.
A burnt mound was identified during testing by Sheelagh Conran in the townland of Killescragh (Excavations 2005, No. 616, A024/3.29). An area of c. 400m was initially recommended for further investigation. Subsequent to this, excavations revealed associated wooden features both connected to the mound and within the area surrounding it. As a result, an area of c. 6000m was tested extensively in order to confirm or deny the presence of further wooden structures. Following this, archaeological deposits were identified spread over an area of c. 1050m.
Preliminary interpretation of the results of excavation suggests up to three phases of activity of human origin separated by a period marked by severe flooding of the area.
The first phase is represented by a wooden horizon, comprising one long north–south-running split timber, supported by a series of stakes and smaller split timbers. The combination of elements suggests this was a platform or small-scale trackway that provided access to the marginal wetland zone. Extending both east and west respectively were two further wooden horizons: a platform area/trackway and another brushwood structure (also possibly a trackway). All these elements appear partly bounded by a semicircular arrangement of large roundwoods.
The proposed Phase 1 platform was later succeeded by the burnt mound. However, these periods of activity are separated by a silt horizon representative of local inundation of the wetland related to flooding and/or erosion. The eastern portion of mound material lay beneath a small brushwood trackway, whereas elsewhere it is found directly above other Phase 1 features. A split and hafted oak plank (with a bevelled and notched end and dowel holes) was exposed near the burnt-mound material. It was not in situ and seemed to be a composite element of a structure (a trough, cart or barrow?). Extending southwards from the mound was a third brushwood trackway made of transversely laid roundwoods and brushwoods. It was laid on top of pre-existing root systems and marginal woodland debris. To the south-east of this trackway a number of wooden ‘off-cuts’ were found strewn over an area of c. 5m by 2m. These have been interpreted as the waste from the felling of trees in the marginal woodland during one of the three phases of human activity on the site.
Situated about 50m to the east of the burnt mound was a spread of charcoal and heat-shattered stone. It occupied a slightly higher elevation than the other features, as it lay closer to the lower slope of the esker. This deposit and the trackway that sat on top of the eastern area of the burnt mound represent the third possible phase of activity on the site.
A range of samples were taken, including wood samples for wood technology analysis, species identification and dating, peat samples for plant macro and environmental reconstruction, charcoal samples for species identification and dating.
Radiocarbon and dendrochronological dating should help clarify the relationship/s of these features to each other.
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