2009:010 - BALLYCLAN, Antrim

The first season of excavation at Ballyclan Rath was reported on in Excavations 2006 (No. 11, AE/06/140). In late 2008 the Northern Ireland Environment Agency asked the CAF to carry out further excavations there as the site was now at immediate threat from development. Excavations recommenced in November 2008 and continued in the spring of 2009. Most of the three quadrants unexcavated after 2006 were mechanically stripped of topsoil under supervision. Within this stripped area eight trenches were manually excavated. Three phases of archaeological activity were uncovered.
An early medieval phase, Phase A, was associated with souterrain ware pottery. It consisted of several gullies, post-holes and pits, although they did not resolve themselves into coherent structures.
Beneath this was an earlier phase, Phase B, of as yet indeterminate but possibly prehistoric date. The main structural elements of this phase were a burnt mound and the probable remains of a circular building with a diameter of 6m, defined by a subcircular setting of post-holes and a semicircular drip channel. The west side of the burnt mound had been modified by the digging of a gully, which had been reworked and lined with clay and which ran towards lower ground to the south. The clay lining of this gully was possibly intended to facilitate the flow of water possibly connected with the use of the burnt mound. The north end of this gully was close to the likely entrance point of the circular building. There was no firm evidence of a trough in the burnt mound. There was a depression in the north-west of the mound but it showed evidence of disturbance in the recent past and it is difficult to be certain of its antiquity. It seems that the circular building and the burnt mound respected each other, so it is likely that they are contemporary.
Beneath the burnt mound there was a relic topsoil layer which was above a number of small pits cut into subsoil which were indicative of an earlier phase of activity, Phase C. These pits had been protected beneath the burnt mound. It is likely that there had been activity of this phase beyond the immediate area of the burnt mound but that it had been truncated, probably during the early medieval period, when there was also truncation of Phase B deposits. These pits contained a number of pieces of struck flint and a few possible sherds of pottery in the Neolithic carinated bowl tradition.

Several attempts were made to dig sections of the rath ditch during the 2009 season at Ballyclan. The ditch was extremely waterlogged, partly due to the natural ground conditions and partly due to field drains from several upslope fields utilising the rath ditch as a sump. During a very dry spell in 2006 it was possible to excavate a section through the ditch. However, during the 2009 season the ditches were so waterlogged that the trench walls were unstable and in each case the walls of the trenches began collapsing even before the ditch had been bottomed, making it impossible to work safely. Consequently further excavation of the ditch was abandoned.