County: Tipperary Site name: Timoney 1
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: A038; E3748
Author: Liam Ó Séaghdha, Valerie J. Keeley Ltd, Brehon House, Kilkenny Road, Castlecomer, Co. Kilkenny.
Site type: Bronze Age pits
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 585405m, N 718660m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.218153, -8.218518
This site was excavated as part of the archaeological resolution of the route of the N7 Castletown–Nenagh road scheme. The site was located on the lower slopes of a ridge, leading into the Timoney/
Moanincha bogs, and as such was criss-crossed with a large number of drains leading north-east/south-west and north–south.
The main archaeological features were located on the north-east of the site. The most significant was a subrectangular pit measuring 5.65m by 2.8m and 0.36m deep. This contained fills of water-washed material, sandy silt and a basal fill of fire-cracked stone and charcoal-rich soil. This was cut by a pit comprised of redeposited natural that extended to cut another small pit to the east. This pit measured 4.8m (east–west) by 2.2m and 0.26m deep and stretched as far as to abut another smaller sub-oval pit to the south-east. This sub-oval pit measured 1.1m (north–south) by 0.85m wide and 0.31m deep and contained a fill of burnt-mound material. Adjacent to the south of the large subrectangular pit was a subcircular pit measuring 1.65m (north-west/south-east) by 1.06m and 0.27m deep. This contained two fills, the primary fill composed of burnt-mound material and a similar fill present in the north-east of the feature.
Approximately 5.5m to the south was a single subcircular post-hole measuring 0.7m in diameter by 0.23m deep and containing a fill of silty sand. A further 5m to the south-west was an oblong pit measuring 1.15m (north–south) by 0.77m wide and 0.19m deep. Towards the centre of the site was a similar subrectangular pit measuring 1.14m (east–west) by 0.8m wide and 0.18m deep. The two latter pits contained similar fills of loose dark-grey/brown sandy silt. To the south of the site was an oblong pit partially disturbed by bioturbation. This pit measured 1.56m (east–west) by 1.49m wide and 0.25m deep and contained two fills. The upper fill was a dark silty sand and the lower fill was fine silt with occasional heat-affected stones. To the south-west of the site, leading towards the wetland, was a small deposit of burnt-mound material, c. 1m in diameter by 0.12m deep. These features are considered to be associated with the burnt mounds in the adjacent site, Tinderry 1 (see No. 1732 below).
