County: Cork Site name: Cappagh East 1
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: E004914
Author: John O'Connor, Rubicon Heritage Services Ltd
Site type: Charcoal-production pits and kiln
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 520736m, N 577868m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 51.947255, -9.153007
The excavated features consisted of two charcoal productions pits, two earlier pits and one spread of burnt material possibly related to industrial processing.
Specialist analysis
The archaeological features sampled and analysed from Cappagh East 1 represent two phases of archaeological activity – a Late Bronze Age feature (013) and by context association pit (011), in addition to two charcoal production pits (003) and (005), which were both radiocarbon dated to the late medieval period. The environmental remains recorded exclusively charcoal, which is most likely to represent the wood taxa used to fuel these features. The wood profile comparison between the pit features (011) and (013) is distinctively different to the charcoal production pits (003) and (005). Hazel dominates samples from (011) and (013), while the oak signal is particularly high from (003) and (005).
The mixed wood assemblage of oak, hazel and pomaceous woods from (011) and (013) suggests contemporaneity and is of a similar wood profile from other later Bronze Age dated features recorded locally along the N22 at Cappagh East 2 (Lyons 2019a), Inchinlinane (Lyons 2019b) and Killeen 3 (Lyons 2019c) for example. The analysis of just two features is not considered a fair representation of wood use more broadly and selection biases influenced by environmental or cultural factors should be considered when interpreting wood use within these features.
Dating
A total of three radiocarbon dates were obtained for the site at Cappagh East 1, one from maloideae charcoal for one of the earlier pits and two from hazel charcoal for the two charcoal production pits. These indicated that the pit activity was undertaken during the Late Bronze Age and the charcoal production took place during the late medieval period
References
Lyons, S., 2019a Charcoal Analysis from Cappagh East 2 (E004915): N22 Baile Bhuirne–Macroom Road Scheme (Lot 1) County Cork. Unpublished technical report for Rubicon Heritage Services Ltd.
Lyons, S., 2019b Charcoal Analysis from Inchinlinane (E004927): N22 Baile Bhuirne–Macroom Road Scheme (Lot 2) County Cork. Unpublished technical report for TVAS Ireland Ltd.
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