County: Kilkenny Site name: Duninga
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 07E0420
Author: Brenda O’Meara, Margaret Gowen & Co. Ltd, 27 Merrion Square, Dublin 2.
Site type: Prehistoric
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 668526m, N 657941m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.668315, -6.986853
Test assessment was carried out in September 2007 at the site of a proposed development at Duninga townland in Kilkenny, as part of a wider assessment which included aerial photography and geophysical survey (06R061). These studies suggested the presence of a large circular enclosure-type feature to the south-west of the study area. Geophysical survey further suggested the presence of previously unrecorded archaeological features at the southern end and towards the east of the site.
Duninga townland is located on lands bound to the east by the River Barrow and to the west by the Goresbridge–Carlow road. The proposed development site lies close to KK021–006, described as a linear earthwork and marked on the OS mapping as ‘Rathduff Trench’, and Duninga rath, KK021–008, a substantial ringfort of probable early historic date.
Fourteen test-trenches were excavated. Assessment indicated the presence of subsurface archaeological features towards the southern and eastern parts of the site.
The enclosure-type feature initially identified from aerial photography was found to have no physical expression on the ground, probably due to levelling and quarrying activities at this location. However, geophysical survey evidence strongly concurs with the evidence from aerial photography, and two trenches were located across the enclosure ditch. The response picked up on the survey is indicative of iron oxides in the glacial subsoil, leached down from a now removed humic or organic soil that formed the fill of an enclosure ditch. The enclosure, with a possible entrance to the south-east, measured c. 36m in diameter. No material evidence to suggest a date for the apparently truncated enclosure was found.
At the southern end of the field, geophysical survey suggested a curvilinear response of possible archaeological origin. Test excavation revealed the disturbed remains of a subcircular enclosure measuring c. 18m in diameter. No datable artefacts were recovered; however, a prehistoric date for the enclosure and associated features is likely.
Towards the eastern side of the site, test excavation revealed a number of features including three possible pits or post-holes and a larger spread or deposit. Charcoal and burnt animal bone was in evidence, and while no datable artefacts were recovered a prehistoric date for the features is likely.
