County: Louth Site name: Aghnaskeagh 1
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: A002/108; E3793
Author: Archaeological Development Services Ltd, Windsor House, 11 Fairview Strand, Dublin 3.
Site type: Pits with flaked lithic artefacts
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 707519m, N 813272m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.057370, -6.357759
Louth County Council, the Roads Service NI (Department for Regional Development) and the National Roads Authority are currently proposing a road scheme, the A1/N1 Newry–Dundalk road. The route consists of 14.2km of 2-lane dual carriageway with 5.7km of associated link roads from Cloghoge roundabout, south of Newry, to the Ballymascanlan interchange, north of Dundalk. As part of the road development, a number of archaeological and historic sites were within the construction zone of the road scheme and were determined eligible for excavation before the construction began.
Site 108 was Feature 8 discovered in the Phase 1 site testing; it consisted of a concentrated charcoal spread 0.66m by 0.8m. Following the Phase 2 surface-stripping of the area, seven archaeological features were revealed. These consisted of three likely hearths that were clustered toward the west of the site; a second cluster of two probable hearths and a stake-hole located c. 8m to the east of the first group, and approximately equidistant from both clusters (between and to the south) was another likely thermal feature. The close proximity, similar function and presence of flaked lithic artefacts in the three thermal features to the west of the site indicate contemporaneity, as do the attributes of the second cluster to the east of the site.
Chris Farrimond and Caroline Powell,
Editor’s note: This report arrived too late for inclusion in the bulletin for 2005, when the work took place.
