County: Galway Site name: MACKNEY
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: E002445
Author: John Tierney, Eachtra Archaeological Projects
Site type: Habitation site
Period/Dating: Bronze Age (2200 BC-801 BC)
ITM: E 583658m, N 729535m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.315832, -8.245243
This was one of several excavations undertaken for Galway County Council and the National Roads Authority which form part of a wider excavation programme undertaken within c. 15 km of the proposed N6 Galway to Ballinasloe dual carriageway scheme (Contract 4).
An area of 571m2 was machine stripped then hand cleaned to reveal a large hearth, nine pits, three large stone-lined post-holes and two smaller post-holes. The artefact assemblage comprised several fragments of blackened coarseware and an unstratified flint blade. The archaeological activity was concentrated to the west, north-west and south-west of the large hearth and was contained within the limit of excavation.
The stone-lined post-holes form a possible rectilinear alignment to the north of the hearth. The pits form a possible curvilinear alignment centred on the hearth. The two smaller rubbish pits are both within 1m of the hearth and could provide evidence for the nature of the activity that occurred around it. This site appears to be a poorly defined, unenclosed habitation site, probably Bronze Age, centred on a large hearth. There are also similar pit features at the adjacent Mackney site (see No. 824, Excavations 2006, E2443) 300m to the north-east. Radiocarbon dating will help to discern what, if any, relationship the sites had with each other or their wider landscape context.
Ballycurreen Industrial Estate, Kinsale Road, Cork
