2007:1030 - AR065, Tinvaun, Kilkenny

This site was located within the N9/N10 Kilcullen to Waterford road scheme along Contract 2, Phase 4, Knocktopher to Powerstown. The site was located on a very gradual west-facing slope immediately adjacent to Knockadrina Hill and was made up primarily of an unenclosed early medieval settlement, with a later medieval field system and subsequent post-medieval field system superimposed on the site.
The early medieval settlement activity had two distinct forms, round houses and sunken houses. The more intact of the two circular houses had an internal diameter of 5m, four major supporting post-holes, a slot-trench (0.2m wide by 0.44m deep) and a very pronounced porch-like entrance made up of post-holes. Additionally several possible furnace pits were present immediately to the south of this house which may have been contemporary with the structure. The second round house, 6.5m internal diameter, was located 30m to the south-east and was heavily truncated on its southern side. The slot-trench and some of the post-holes of this house appeared to have been reset on at least one occasion due to the soft nature of the substrate in this area. Several linear and curvilinear features, together with a number of pits and post-holes within this vicinity, appear to suggest that there was a fair degree of contemporary related activity with this round house; a copper-alloy brooch pin was retrieved from one of these related features.
A cobbled pathway/roadway (1.8m wide and one course of small stones in depth) was running from beside the south-east corner of this house to a pond some 35m to the south-west. As the pathway respected the boundary of the pond and the house, it is suggested that these are contemporary; the pond may have been a convenient water source. The pond, which was present on the first-edition OS map, had been heavily disturbed on its northern edge by a large post-medieval pit.
The second form of settlement consisted of two subrectangular sunken houses; the first (5m north–south by 4m) was located in the north-east corner of the site and had a central sunken (0.1m in depth) area 3m in diameter with a central hearth and four shallow post-holes for support, accompanied by a curvilinear slot-trench on the eastern and northern sides. The second of these structures 40m to the south was of similar dimensions with a more pronounced central sunken subrectangular area (0.26m in depth) with supporting posts to the north and south. This structure had a cobbled floor, with a flat stone slab employed as a possible internal separation, and the sunken area had been backfilled with stones, suggesting it was at least partially stone built. A copper-alloy pin was retrieved from among the stone backfill.
The superimposed medieval features consisted of a series of ditches and gullies, which yielded a variety of finds: pottery fragments from the 13th–15th centuries and a copper-alloy possible club-headed pin. The medieval features were oriented north-west/south-east and north-east/south-west with smaller, possibly later, furrows and gullies running east–west and north–south.