2008:040 - Lisburn Feeder Road (II), Aghalislone, Little Thaxton, Antrim

The development site is situated in an area to the north of Nettlehill Road and west of Pond Park Road, Lisburn. The proposed development is part of a larger project that will see new housing, areas of green space and recreation space and a new feeder road constructed in north Lisburn. Work on the North Lisburn Feeder Road commenced in October 2004 and a new roundabout and associated access roads have been completed. Excavations undertaken between October 2004 and May 2005 produced a substantial quantity of archaeology, with some notable sites within the immediate vicinity of the proposed development. The most significant of these were a Neolithic house and a Bronze Age round house. Both of these sites were uncovered in areas west of Pond Park Road, close to the proposed development.
The excavation also investigated areas east of Pond Park Road along the route of the new feeder road. These investigations revealed a large amount of archaeology, including several more burnt mounds or fulachta fiadh, an industrial clay extraction site dating to the Bronze Age, an Early Christian/pre-medieval ditch, a structure of as yet unknown date plus linear features and scatterings of other discrete features.
Two areas remained unstripped along the eastern and part of the northern boundary as these areas had been set aside to store topsoil. Monitoring of removal of the eastern spoil heap was undertaken in June 2007. Excavation took place in June and July 2007 following the identification of archaeological deposits.
The archaeology as excavated revealed two areas of activity. The first area measured 7m north to south by 6m and was defined by a curvilinear arrangement of six subsoil-cut pits, three of which contained post-holes. This arrangement was aligned south-west to north-east to east and traced for a distance of over 7.2m. Intersecting this was a second north to south arrangement of three pits, noted for a distance of 3m. Six further pits were scattered to both the north-west and south-east of the alignments.
The second area, defined by a cluster of five pits, was located 10m to the north-west of the main area. Finds recovered included a flint scraper and a quantity of flint waste material showing signs of retouch.
The date of the site is at present unclear, as post-excavation analysis is currently ongoing. However, the site is situated c. 80m north of a Bronze Age site excavated by the writer during Phase 1 of the development (Excavations 2006, No. 93, AE/06/60) and 120m southeast of the Neolithic structure excavated in 2004/5 by Ruairí Ó Baoill (Excavations 2004, No. 57; Excavations 2005, No. 39, AE/04/165).

Editor’s note: Although excavated during 2007, the report on this site arrived too late for inclusion in the bulletin of that year.