2013:320 - Dunmore Windfarm, Dunmore, Derry

Monitored topsoil stripping was required on this site prior to the development of the windfarm. Three areas of interest were uncovered. Area 1 was a cairn located to the west of Turbine 8 (grid reference C 75603 28820). Area 2 was a small, Early to Middle Bronze Age occupation site located in between Turbines 7 and 8 (grid reference C 75692 28608) and Area 3 contained two Early Bronze Age cremation pits located within the footprint of Turbine 8 (grid reference C 75696 28775).

Area 1
The cairn excavated at Dunmore covered neither a cist nor a cremation, instead it surrounded and buried a series of erect stones that formed a rectangular chamber 1.65m long by 1m wide by 0.4m deep. There was no evidence for any capstones, nor was there any evidence for a covering of wood, which would have collapsed leaving an indentation on the top of the cairn. There were no cremated bone fragments present so we must assume that the burial was an inhumation that has subsequently disintegrated with the inundation of the peat. Unfortunately, due to the lack of suitable material the cairn the site can only be dated by typology and by its location within the surrounding archaeological landscape. It is therefore likely that the cist dates to the Early Bronze Age although further research may change this hypothesis.

Area 2
The archaeology uncovered at Area 2 is a complicated series of overlapping sites/features with at least three phases.

The earliest phase appears to be a domestic site with a hearth (C20) and associated spread (F74) with four stake-holes surrounding the hearth. This site was dated to the Early Bronze Age 2200 – 1980 BC; artefacts associated with the hearth were four pieces of flint and 35 pieces of pottery. The associated artefacts suggest more than just a single-event occupation site but no structure was associated with this phase. It is possible that further archaeological features remain on the site to the west of the excavation.

The second phase consisted of a small structure 3.1m in diameter which dated to the early to middle Bronze Age 1880 – 1680 BC. At the centre of the structure was a fire pit which may have been a hearth; this was later used as a cremation pit. The human remains recovered from the central fire pit and the shape of the feature link this site to Area 3, which instead of indicating domestic activities may in fact be part of the funerary landscape.

The third phase consisted of a third hearth (C86) which contained nine pieces of pottery; this hearth was possibly associated with an alignment of posts that may have acted as a windbreak. The re-use of this area after its use as a cremation site suggests that there was no marker in the landscape to indicate its previous use.

It is interesting to note that whilst the pottery and lithics specialist reports agree that the assemblages from the site at Area 2 appear to be Middle to Late Neolithic in date the radiocarbon dates are Early to Middle Bronze Age. The two features to contain pottery were from the first phase C20 and the last phase C86. The pottery was identified as having come from only two different vessels, one from each feature, with the vessels in a very fragmentary condition making the identification tentative. The flint came from ten separate features, although the flint assemblage appears to be mostly from the Neolithic; this is based on only a few of the pieces as most of the assemblage was un-diagnostic. One of the only pieces of flint identified as possibly dating to the Early Bronze Age came from the inner gully of the structure C23. The radiocarbon dates for the Early to Middle Bronze Age appear in an area of the calibration graphs which is very undulating. This has led to the dates from Dunmore ranging over 320 years for feature C20 and 200 years for feature C89. This uncertainty means that the radiocarbon dates become a tool to highlight the area of interest rather than identifying exactly which sites correspond to which. There are also issues with possible old wood effect when dating with carbonised wood, although this only affects C89 as C20 was dated using charred hazelnut shell.

Area 3
Although only four features were uncovered at Area 3 they are potentially very important to the understanding of the local Bronze Age landscape. The two main pits, C102 and C103, appear to be the locations of human cremations; this is not the locations in which the remains were interred but the locations at which the bodies were burnt. The existence of the pits on this side of the valley without the cremation burial sites could suggest that this side of the valley was used for the burning of the remains whereas the other side of the valley was used for the deposition of the remains within the large cairns, though as only a small percentage of the southern valley side has been investigated it is impossible to draw any detailed conclusions.

Northern Archaeological Consultancy Ltd, Farset Enterprise Park, 638 Springfield Road, Belfast, BT12 7DY