County: Fermanagh Site name: ROSSMACAFFRY
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: AE/07/78
Author: Brian Sloan, Centre for Archaeological Fieldwork
Site type: Burnt mound
Period/Dating: Undetermined
ITM: E 633324m, N 833175m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.246341, -7.488704
Following the archaeological supervision of topsoil-stripping at a site in Rossmacaffry, Co. Fermanagh, a small excavation was carried out to investigate features of potential archaeological significance. A spread of burnt fragmented sandstone within a charcoal-rich matrix was observed in the monitoring exercise and this provided the focus of the follow-up excavation. The thin spread of burnt material is interpreted as the remains of a truncated burnt mound.
The spread of burnt material was removed and found to be relatively thin (a maximum of 0.2m deep). The removal of this material revealed two large rectilinear pits stratigraphically beneath the burnt spread. These pits were filled with large burnt sandstone rocks and a ‘cap’ of redeposited subsoil. It is not possible to confirm these features as troughs, although their fill of sandstone and charcoal suggests that they are associated with the use of the burnt mound. Post-excavation work is still ongoing on this project.
School of Geography, Archaeology and Palaeoecology, Queen’s University, Belfast, BT7 1NN
