County: Meath Site name: Cookstown Great 2
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: A029–020; E3138
Author: Gill McLoughlin, Irish Archaeological Consultancy Ltd, 120B Greenpark Road, Bray, Co. Wicklow.
Site type: Burnt mound
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 675318m, N 776336m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.731237, -6.858532
The main feature at this site on the M3 Clonee–Kells was a spread of burnt-mound material measuring 19m by 15m by 0.21m deep which was situated on a gentle slope next to a stream. Under the mound material there were three possible shallow troughs/cooking pits and a few small pits. The most substantial feature sealed by the mound was a large waterhole. The site was truncated by linear ditches which were of the same orientation as other linear ditches excavated close to the site which produced modern finds. A clay-pipe stem fragment was recovered from the base of one of the ditches that truncated the site. There was also a lot of root disturbance, where the burnt-spread material was worked into the natural subsoil. A large subrectangular pit which lay under a field boundary hedge was truncated by a linear ditch but its date is unclear. It appeared to post-date the burnt-mound activity (it cuts the possible shallow trough/cooking pit) but pre-dates the linear ditch. The pit was largely filled with redeposited natural. No finds were recovered from this feature.
Other features on the site included two shallow possible troughs/cooking pits, a hearth/fire pit, an irregular-shaped feature with charcoal deposits, and the most significant feature was an elongated oval pit, the lower fill of which contained ten cord-impressed Bronze Age pottery sherds.
Finds recovered from cleaning of the site include blackware and clay-pipe fragments.