County: Westmeath Site name: Correagh
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: A016/066; E3374
Author: Patricia Lynch, Irish Archaeological Consultancy Ltd, 120B Greenpark Road, Bray, Co. Wicklow.
Site type: Two burnt mounds
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 629921m, N 736208m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.375210, -7.550334
Testing was carried out as part of an archaeological mitigation programme associated with the N6 Kilbeggan to Athlone dual carriageway. The site was identified during testing undertaken by Patricia Lynch of IAC Ltd in July 2005 (A016/066). The site was excavated in March 2006. An excavation area measuring c. 1250m2 was opened.
The site at Correagh 1 consisted of a number of burnt-mound spreads, two of which produced timber-lined troughs, along with a number of pits also located around the spreads. The sides of one of the troughs may have been lined with wattle and there was also evidence of a timber-lined channel issuing from one end of the trough towards the former stream located along the northern side of the site. The functions of all the features recorded on site are not clear. Modern agricultural activity in the form of field boundaries, furrows and modern burning was also noted.
The lithic finds retrieved, a blade, a flake, an end scraper and a micro disc scraper, were sent for specialist analysis and can be dated on typological and technological grounds to the Beaker period. Other finds included a polished stone axehead, which is being studied as part of the Stone Axe Project at UCD, and an antler haft. The antler haft was a unique object, made from a piece of shed antler, probably red deer. Vincent Butler, who identified the material, commented that it had probably been selected specifically for its peculiar shape, which appears to have been caused by a deformity in the area where the burr was attached to the base (Johnson 2007, unpublished). It is likely to be a haft, with some type of implement mounted in the large oval perforation through the beam. It is quite possible that it held a stone axe, hammer or chisel (ibid.). An alternative suggestion for the object’s function has been put forward by John Ó Néill, who thinks that it may be the first good evidence for a Bronze Age horse harness fitting, such as that found at Heathery Burn cave, Co. Durham, in a Late Bronze Age context (ibid.).
This work was funded by Westmeath County Council and the National Roads Authority.
Reference
Johnson C. 2007 The N6 Kilbeggan–Athlone Road Project: The small finds from A016/066 Correagh 1. Unpublished report. Dublin.
Editor’s note: Although excavated during 2006, the report on this site arrived too late for inclusion in the bulletin of that year.
