2010:517 - Donacarney Great, Meath

An excavation took place over three fields to the north-west of Bettystown, Co. Meath, during September 2009 to January 2010. The dominant topographical feature on the site was a ridge of high land orientated north-west/south-east, on which all of the significant archaeological remains were located. The ridge was the focus of the excavations, and was almost completely stripped of topsoil, forming a contiguous archaeological site measuring 250m in length and 40–60m in width, and covering over 1ha in area.
Early prehistoric period: 4000–2300 bc
Mesolithic artifacts (including a Moynagh point and a but-trimmed flake) indicated early activity, but the earliest firm evidence for occupation on the site was in the Neolithic period. An early/mid-Neolithic structure appeared to take the form of a rectangular roofed building (5.5m by 3.5m) formed by post-holes and slot-trenches with a porch protruding centrally along the long side to the south-east. The porch had been constructed in such a way as to restrict views into the left-hand corner of the interior, as noted at other Neolithic structures, particularly court tombs. The two large entrance post-holes were filled with Neolithic pottery and one had a broken saddle quern upside-down over the top of it. Evidence for the intentional dismantling and destruction of the structure was interpreted as the transformation of the building into a monument during the middle Neolithic, and it was noted that this monument continued to have relevance into the Bronze Age phase of the site.
Middle Neolithic activity was also identified elsewhere on the site, for example at the apex of the ridge where a single stone-lined post-hole (interpreted as holding a marker post) contained Carrowkeel ware and unidentified cremated bone.
The focus of late Neolithic activity was a cluster of post-holes forming a possible rectangular structure (5m by 4m) surrounded by further post-holes, pits and curving slot-trenches at the other end of the site. Fragments of grooved ware (as well as mid-Neolithic and Beaker pottery) and flint debitage of various dates appeared to have been intentionally deposited in some of the post-holes. The presence of four main post-holes forming a square and a defined double-set of post-holes forming an entrance is suggestive of the four central post-settings often seen in timber circles, such as the one identified at Bettystown nearby, but no firm evidence of a timber circle was noted here.
As well as the Beaker pottery in the grooved ware structure, other deposits of Beaker pottery were noted on the site. In one area a cluster of small pits and post-holes were stuffed with Beaker pottery following the abandonment of a structure.
A common feature of the early prehistoric (i.e. Neolithic) structures on the site was the presence of seemingly intentional artefact-rich deposits within structural post-holes. This does not appear to have occurred with later prehistoric structures on the site. These deposits were examined as a related group, and a number of interesting avenues of interpretation were explored during excavation and post-excavation. The preliminary report on the excavation discusses these with reference to the emergence of new ways of eating and cooking that emerged during the Neolithic period, and in light of the persistence of foraging/nomadic (and pastoralist?) lifestyles during the later Neolithic.
Later prehistoric period: 2300 bc to ad 500
Later prehistoric activity involved a much greater emphasis on the enclosure of the landscape, in contrast to earlier prehistoric settlement evidence, and this was reflected on the site by a large ditched enclosure and linear land boundaries. Curving ditches containing no datable material identified in another part of the site may have represented a second very large circular enclosure of late prehistoric date.
The large ditched enclosure (c. 30m internal diam.) is likely to date to the later Bronze Age, and to form part of a wider tradition of enclosed ridge-top settlement. Two phases of construction were identified: an early partially bivallate phase and a later univallate phase with a centrally located round structure that was partially encircled by a series of large pits. Another interesting feature was an off-centre square structure defined by four very large stone-lined post-holes that may have supported a heavy platform for a raised granary, as interpreted on other contemporary sites. The similarity in the situations of the four-post structures at the recently excavated (but later and completely different in terms of scale) site at Lismullin 1 and at Donacarney in relation to both an inner circular feature and an outer enclosure is particularly striking. A number of other structures were also noted outside the circular enclosure.
Two fulachta fiadh were identified in the low-lying western part of the site, both sited on the edges of old watercourses. One of these comprised a large circular well connected by a narrow gap (which no doubt could be opened and closed by means of a wooden sluice or similar) to a circular trough, with a small kiln nearby. Somewhat unusually for fulacht fiadh sites, flint specialist Farina Sterke identified a large assemblage of middle Neolithic flint within the feature, including several scrapers used in hide processing. Fragments of a cordoned urn-type pottery vessel recovered from the upper fills of the well may have been a later insertion within the backfilled feature.
A set of regular co-axial ditches ran over the ridge. Based on stratigraphic evidence and the presence of flint arrowheads and fragments of coarse pottery in the fill, it has been dated to the late Bronze Age, suggesting comparisons with other well-known prehistoric field systems in western Ireland. Although the field system cut through earlier prehistoric features, it was clear that elements of these previous features were still visible, and impacted upon the overall form of the field system. One part of the field system ended suddenly near the highest point of the ridge, and it is hypothesised that in the Bronze Age some sort of aboveground feature, or natural feature, had stood here. Later, in the Iron Age, this location was selected for the construction of a ring-ditch, which cut through the earlier ditch system. The integration of pre-existing monuments into prehistoric field systems, and the incorporation of new monuments into the same field systems, as identified on this site, is a pattern that occurs across Britain and Ireland.
The Iron Age ring-ditch was of typical size and form and contained two bone deposits, of which the large (south-eastern) deposit definitely represented human bone, whereas the origin of the bone from the smaller deposit was unclear. It seems probable that the ring-ditch was constructed specifically for the south-eastern burial, and such monuments are often seen as primarily funerary in function. The south-eastern cremation deposit contained a variety of artefacts, including fragments of iron and copper representing a possible fibula or brooch, and a number of glass and bone beads. The beads (eight plain polished bone beads, twenty tiny pale blue-green beads and one larger glass bead decorated with concentric circles of blue, red and yellow glass) were examined by Judith Carroll, who suggested they formed part of a single object such as a necklace or bracelet. The beads showed signs of heat damage consistent with being laid upon a corpse in a pyre prior to burial of the ashes in the ring-ditch. These beads are closely comparable to 1st- or 2nd-century bc assemblages found in a number of Iron Age burial contexts throughout the country, but particularly in Galway.
Carroll also suggested that the beads may have been manufactured in Britain, and this British connection may be mirrored by the fragmented fibula, suggesting that the individual who wore them considered themselves connected to the wider world, and may have been someone of higher than usual status or rank with access to a range of imported and fancy, perhaps expensive, items. The significance of this individual’s cremation, and of the burial monument’s interesting location in terms of earlier Neolithic ritual activity and the Bronze Age field system, is discussed at length in the preliminary excavation report. The construction of the ring-ditch might have crystallised existing (and perhaps competing) land or status claims into the historical landscape – and in this way perhaps intentionally subverted an earlier more fluid system of land organisation and ownership.
Early medieval and later periods: ad 500–1150
Early medieval activity on the site was represented by a larger field system that cut across and did not respect the earlier prehistoric features. Four unenclosed plank-built structures that may have been houses, kiln screens or sheltered ateliers/stores were also identified. Five cereal-processing kilns were found, generally cut into the banks of the early medieval field boundaries, and there was tentative stratigraphic evidence for the keyhole-shaped kiln being later than the figure-of-eight-shaped kilns, supporting a hypothesis put forward by Monk and Kelleher (1995) regarding the relative antiquities of the two kiln types. One kiln was enormous (7m long and almost 1m deep) and contained two sawn antler craft off-cuts and a large fragment of a human skull, which seems to have been intentionally placed centrally at the bottom of the deeper bowl.
Overall, the excavation exposed a long period of prehistoric settlement along the spine of a ridge. The ridge was clearly a focus of ceremonial activity, but not to the point where ‘profane’ activities were excluded. Rather, it appears that domestic or practical structures and features were selected for special commemoration and transformed into monuments that, over time, formed part of the landscape. When dealing with a period of time measured in millennia rather than years, landscapes undergo constant transformation as they are passed down from one generation to the next, and the meanings of old house sites, field boundaries and monuments are interpreted in new ways.
Reference
Monk, M. and Kelleher, R. 1995 An assessment of the archaeological evidence for Irish corn-drying kilns in the light of the results of archaeological experiments and archaeobotanical studies. Journal of Irish Archaeology xiv, 77–114.