2007:139 - Ballyline 1 and 2, Clare

These burnt spreads were discovered on flat land at 26m OD close to the base of a hill in Ballyline townland, in north County Clare. The spreads were discovered through test excavations on the route of the N18 Gort to Crusheen road scheme. They were excavated during January and February 2007.
Ballyline 1 was the more northerly of the two sites. The sandstone spread was heavily disturbed and the grass was growing directly on top of the spread with no depth of topsoil. The eastern edge of the spread was cut by a modern open field drain. The main concentration of spread measured 10m north–south by 9m and had a maximum depth of 0.15m. The spread was pulled across the site in various patches but the dimensions given probably represent the original location of the site, as a series of east–west and north–south furrows and drain features in this vicinity had concentrations of burnt material within their fills. There were four probable troughs and one shallow pit and one truncated deeper pit. All of these were clustered close together under the general area of the spread.
An oval trough (2.5m by 1.5m by 0.3m) that was filled with burnt material in silt was cut by a modern drain and in its turn the trough truncated an oval pit. This pit (1.8m by 1m by 0.55m) had two fills. The base fill was dark-brown sandy silt containing frequent charcoal and a third of this fill was sandstone. The top fill was light-yellow clay.
A pit (1.18m by 1m by 0.36m) abutted this group to the north. The fill was sandstone burnt material. Nearby an oval trough (2.4m by 1m by 0.3m) was filled with silty sand mixed with gravel, burnt sandstone and lumps of redeposited yellow clay that were all evenly distributed throughout the fill. Slightly to the north of this group there was a pear-shaped trough (1.8m by 1.4m at its widest by 0.91m wide at its narrowest by 0.41m deep). This trough was filled with dark silty clay with sporadic sandstone. The most southerly trough was oblong to elliptical in shape (2.4m by 0.8m by 0.4m). This was filled with brownish-grey silt and half of its volume was fire-cracked sandstone. This trough had a V-shaped cross-section, whereas all the other features on site had gradual concave cross-sections.
A field boundary cut across the site from the north-west/south-east was partly sunken and has been backfilled in the recent past. The fill contained large numbers of sherds of modern domestic ceramic ware.
Ballyline 2 was less disturbed than Ballyline 1. This site contained two burnt spreads. The most southerly of the two was also the larger. This one (6.95m by 5.6m by 0.15m) was a sandstone spread. It covered a bath-shaped trough (1.95m by 1.25m by 0.63m). The sides were steep and tapered very gradually to a rounded junction at the base. The base itself was flat. The trough had two fills. The eastern one was black silty sand with frequent charcoal. The western fill was dark-grey sandy silt. Under the south-western edge of the larger spread there was a round, straight-sided flat-bottomed pit (diameter 0.6m, depth 0.39m). The fill was greyish-brown sandy silt and much fire-cracked sandstone.
The second, slightly smaller, northerly spread (5.2m by 3.5m by 0.15m) was almost abutting the north-west corner of the southern one. The two spreads could have been one spread previously and modern agricultural practices could have removed the intervening spread material. This spread covered an oval trough (2.68m by 1.9m by 0.42m). The southern third of the trough was a shallower step or shelf (0.3m deep). The sides were concave and the base of the main body of the trough and the step area were concave. The fill was dark-grey sandy silt with much burnt stones and charcoal.
A series of east–west furrows ran across the site. Some of these contained chinaware. A silted-up field boundary ran north-west/south-east. It ran in the same direction as the field boundary in Ballyline 1 but it appeared to be parallel to it and was west of it. The fill was less humic than the Ballyline 1 example and it may represent an earlier phase of the same field boundary. The main fill was sterile silty clay. The top fill was a build-up of silt. In this silt layer there was chinaware and a small piece of burnt bone.