County: Meath Site name: Garretstown 2
Sites and Monuments Record No.: - Licence number: A008/008, E3061
Author: Stuart Rathbone, Archaeological Consultancy Services Ltd, 21 Boyne Business Park, Greenhills, Drogheda.
Site type: Ring-ditches, ditches
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 695951m, N 754828m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.534636, -6.552573
This site was located within Contract 2 (Dunshaughlin to Navan) of the proposed M3 Clonee to north of Kells motorway and was identified during advance archaeological testing by Jonathan Dempsey in April 2004 (Excavations 2004, No. 1336, 04E0415). Full resolution began in March 2006 and is almost complete. A complicated site with two main phases of activity has been revealed; no diagnostic material has been recovered.
The first phase is represented by two large ring-ditches (one circular, one subcircular) and may also include a number of smaller, circular ditch features. This phase is tentatively dated to the Bronze Age. A series of large, linear ditches with multiple recuts represents the second phase of the site. At first these ditches were thought to be part of a field system belonging to a settlement located immediately west of the site, which was identified by geophysics (GSB Prospection 2004). However, a large ditch found at the east of the site appeared to be part of the perimeter of a large subcircular enclosure, most of which lay outside the proposed land-take. Ten corn-drying kilns were discovered on site and are likely to belong to the possible early medieval Phase 2.
