County: Cork Site name: DERRYCARHOON
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 10E0287
Author: William O’Brien
Site type: Bronze Age copper mine
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 499076m, N 540641m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 51.609213, -9.457176
A second season of excavation was conducted at Derrycarhoon copper mine in the Mizen Peninsula, West Cork. Excavation along a section of an exposed trench mine exposed a rock-cut working up to 4m deep, driven almost vertically into a sedimentary ‘copper-bed’. The upper part of this mine was filled with solid peat to a depth of 2–3m. Below this there was a waterlogged deposit of stony mine sediment containing broken stone hammers and fragments of worked and unworked roundwood. Part of an antler pick used in this mining was also recovered. Other finds include two wooden components used as handles for stone hammers, some pointed sticks and short wedges used in rock extraction, and two large branches used to climb in and out of the working. Radiocarbon dates for the antler and worked wood indicate that this mine was worked in the 13th century BC, with a similar age range for surface mine spoil excavated in 2010 in the central site area (Excavations 2010, no. 126).
Department of Archaeology, University College Cork
