2017:062 - A6 Drumahoe to Dungiven: Site 7, Derry

Detailed excavation was required within this area due to the proximity of a prehistoric urn burial. The burial was discovered in 1959 during the trenching for a new housing estate (Morton and Waterman 1960, 12-14). The original burial deposit contained the cremated remains of at least one adult, and an urn described as of ‘enlarged food-vessel’ type. Both urn and cremated remains appear to have come from a small pit with the cremated bones placed on a flat stone at the base of the pit and covered by the inverted urn. Elsewhere charcoal and areas of burning were noted in other trenches and an undated pit or ditch. When the urn burial, and associated remains, were identified no plans of the archaeology appear to have been undertaken and only a 6-digit Irish Grid location reference was noted. Both factors make spatially locating the archaeological remains within the 1959 development area impossible. As this is the case the entirety of the 1959 development area is considered to have been an archaeological site by the Historic Environment Division. It is duly recorded on the Sites and Monuments Record as LDY 031:016, Urn Burial.

Site 7 was located immediately south of the eastern half of the 1959 development. It was within a small enclosed field between the former Glenshane Road and the current A6, and east of Magherabuoy Terrace. An area of c. 2000 sq.m was mechanically stripped under archaeological supervision. No archaeological remains, or artefacts, were recorded and as such it is recommended that no further archaeological mitigation is required in this area.

Reference:

Morton W.R.M. and Waterman D.M. 1960 “Recent finds of Bronze Age Burials” Ulster Journal of Archaeology, Volume 23, pp. 12-14.

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