2012:048 - Little Ballymena: A8 Dualling, Area A28, Antrim

This site was part of the A8 Belfast–Larne Road Dualling Scheme. The scheme was test trenched (above No. 17, AE/12/96) and areas containing possible archaeological features were expanded to discover the extent of the archaeology.  A new licence was then granted to excavate these areas of archaeology; Area A28 was one of those areas.

Area A28 was situated to the north-west of the Lisglass Road on a raised, flat piece of ground within an undulating landscape; just to the north of the site there was a steep drop down to an area of bog.  The site consisted of a series of post-holes and large pits.  A townland boundary was identified on the 2^nd edition OS map running along the western side of the site.

There were four archaeological features within this area, along with a series of modern agricultural features.  Without any datable artefactual material from any of the features there is currently no way of defining the archaeological period from which these features originate.

Pit C519, which was probably associated with the spreads F511 and F512, was likely to be the edge of an archaeological site which continued past the edge of the road take area (limit of the excavation) to the east.

Kilns C500/C535 could have been in use at any stage between the Bronze Age and the Early Christian period. A similar feature uncovered at Trooperslane, Carrickfergus by Warren Bailie and Peter Bowen, where a series of large pits were connected to smaller pits by a flue-like gully (Excavations 2011, No. 35, Ae/10/205).  Unfortunately the site at Trooperslane is still in the post-excavation phase and currently no date is available.  Further work is required on this feature, including radiocarbon dates, in order to define its period of use.

The last feature was wall C502/F503, which followed the ground contour running east to west at the northern end of Area A28.  Originally it was believed that this feature could have formed part of the townland boundary which ran near to the site; however, a closer look at the 2^nd edition OS map clearly shows the townland boundary running along the western boundary of the site.  Instead the 2^nd edition map shows a dotted line running along the upper edge of the slope, in the approximate location of C502.  If this line marks the location of the boundary created by C502 then it is safe to say that it was present in the 19^th century.

Post-excavation work is in progress and the full report should be available by the end of August 2013.

Northern Archaeological Consultancy Ltd, Farset Enterprise Park, 638 Springfield Road, Belfast, T12 7DY