2016:282 - Parknabinnia, Clare

NMI Burial Excavation Records

County: Clare Site name: Parknabinnia

Sites and Monuments Record No.: CL016-061002 Licence number: 16E0129

Author: Ros Ó Maoldúin/The Irish Fieldschool of Prehistoric Archaeology

Site type: Wedge tomb

Period/Dating:

ITM: E 525739m, N 693414m

Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.986313, -9.105976

Wedge tomb CL016-061002, on Roughan Hill, Co. Clare was excavated between June and August of 2016 as part of a fieldschool (www.prehistoricfieldschool.ie). This was the second of three planned wedge tomb excavations on Roughan Hill, aimed at addressing questions and theories set out in a paper prior to commencement (Jones et al. 2015).

The tomb had been damaged and retained only one standing stone, it had suffered severe badger disturbance. Nonetheless, a substantial amount of human bone, mostly cremated but also unburnt, was retrieved. Despite most of this coming from badger upcast, it will prove useful for osteological, aDNA and isotope analyses.

Several lithics were retrieved from and around the cairn. These were mostly debitage and cannot be stratigraphically tied to the burial depositions within the tomb. These are being analysed by lithics specialist Dr Killian Driscoll. Flakes from two polished stone objects were found, one in an in-situ deposit potentially associated with a deposition of cremated bone and the other on the natural surface under badger upcast and topsoil at the front of the tomb. These will both be further analysed by the author, brought to the Geology Dept., NUIG, for petrological identification and illustrated for the final report.

Once the osteological and zooarchaeological analyses are complete a comprehensive program of radiocarbon dating, aDNA and isotope analyses is planned. The aDNA work will be carried out by Lara Cassidy and Professor Dan Bradley at Trinity College Dublin, and the isotope analysis will be carried out by Dr Rick Schulting’s team at the School of Archaeology, Oxford University.

The preliminary report is available on the author's academia.edu page https://nuigalway.academia.edu/RosOMaolduin

Reference:

Jones, C., McVeigh, T. & Ó Maoldúin, R. 2015. Monuments, Landscape and Identity in Chalcolithic Ireland. In: K. Springs (ed.) Landscape and Identity: Archaeology and Human Geography. 3-26. BAR International Series 2709.

Laghtagoona House, Gort Rd, Corofin, Co. Clare