County: Kildare Site name: BURTONHALL DEMESNE
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: E002567
Author: Angus Stephenson, Headland Archaeology Ltd.
Site type: Fulacht fia
Period/Dating: Prehistoric (12700 BC-AD 400)
ITM: E 678354m, N 680300m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.867893, -6.836234
The site was excavated as part of the N9/N10 Kilcullen to Waterford scheme: Kilcullen to Powerstown. Testing carried out on this site in 2005 by Brendon Wilkins (Excavations 2005, No. 738, A021/009) identified the possible remains of a fulacht fiadh. This was seen to measure at least 9m by 6m, with an average recorded depth of horizontally lain burnt deposits of 0.12m. The fulacht fiadh continued to the field boundary and beyond the zone of the compulsory purchase order (CPO). An outlying post-hole was also noted during testing.
Full resolution was conducted on this site between February 7 and March 30 2006. The site contained the remains of a mound of shattered stones and black ash, which can be confidently described as a fulacht fiadh, probably dating to the Bronze Age. The layers of burnt material extended over an area of 16m by 10m within the CPO zone and covered a central rectangular trough, 2.1m long, with an oval recut through it, near and below the modern field boundary. The recut trough had a depth of 0.4m below the topsoil. The earlier trough had at least five stake-holes driven into its corners. Two further individual outlying stake-holes were found beneath the burnt stone and ash spreads, which may have been roughly contemporary. An interpretation of the function of the features cannot be definitively made, but the usual suggestions about such monuments should be considered applicable, that the site was used for heating water for cooking, washing or similar activities in prehistoric times. No associated finds were recovered, although samples were taken for dating and interpretative purposes.
The interface between the burnt material and the underlying glacial till was irregular and many of the ash-filled anomalies below the mound are likely originally to have been naturally formed depressions, although a few of these scattered features may have been man-made archaeological pits. Some of the mound material had been used to bank up the modern field boundary, which contained extensive animal burrows and tree roots. In the field boundary bank and in the troughs up to 0.6m depth of burnt deposits could be seen, although away from the bank their surviving thickness did not exceed 0.2m.
A later undated stream channel cut through the middle of the mound. This is likely to have been a forerunner of the adjacent stream, straightened, deepened and embanked in modern times.
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