County: Dublin Site name: Barnhill, Barberstown, Hansfield, Dublin 15
Sites and Monuments Record No.: n/a Licence number: 19E0650
Author: Liam Coen, c/o Archer Heritage
Site type: Burnt mound/fulacht fia
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 703455m, N 738715m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.388454, -6.444725
Excavation revealed several thin deposits of archetypal burnt mound material, i.e. heat-affected stone in a charcoal-rich matrix, overlying and filling several subsoil -cut pits. The larger pits were only partially filled with this material and the feature most likely to have functioned as a trough, i.e. the pit for boiling/heating water, had a thick peaty clay fill sealing the burnt mound deposit. This suggests a relatively short-lived period of use of the site before its abandonment and the subsequent development of the peaty clay fill. Hazel charcoal retrieved from the basal fill of this probable trough produced a date of 2140-1940 cal. 2δ BC (D-AMS038505; 3661 +/- 30BP) and places activity here in the Early Bronze Age. Unfortunately, no artefacts or animal bone were retrieved from the excavation to provide supporting evidence for what range of activities may have occurred here.
Unit 8 Beat Centre, Balbriggan, Co. Dublin
