County: Mayo Site name: Clooncarrabaun
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 08E0156
Author: Declan Moore, Moore Archaeological & Environmental Services Ltd. (Moore Group), Corporate House, Ballybrit Business Park, Ballybrit, Galway.
Site type: Testing
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 480720m, N 780903m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.764066, -9.809161
Testing was carried out at a greenfield site at Clooncarrabaun, Louisburg, Co. Mayo, on 4 and 5 March 2008. It was intended that the site, subject to a grant of planning, be developed in two separate phases. As part of the preliminary investigation works, Geoarc Ltd. were commissioned to carry out a magnetic gradiometry survey of the site to assess its archaeological potential. The results of this survey informed the testing regime for both Phase 1 (tested by Richard Crumlish in December 2007, see Excavations 2007, No. 1231, 07E1131) and Phase 2 of the project. No known monuments are present within the site. The closest monument (an enclosure) is located c. 600m to the south of the study area.
No major anomalies indicative of identifiable archaeological activity were detected as a result of the magnetic gradiometry survey. However, a number of anomalies of unknown origin were identified and it is these features that were targeted as part of the testing.
In all c. 920m of trench-line was excavated by a 30-tonne track machine using a 1.2m-wide ditching bucket. Testing exposed a number of modern field drains, an earlier stone-lined culvert and pockets of decaying stone and natural bedrock. No finds or features of an archaeological nature were evident.
