County: Dublin Site name: Hollywoodrath, Dublin 15
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 18E0662
Author: Tim Coughlan & Daisy Spencer
Site type: Cereal-drying kiln
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 709170m, N 743280m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.428312, -6.357267
Archaeological excavations were undertaken at Hollywoodrath, Dublin 15 on 14 February 2019. A corn-drying kiln (DU013-042) lies 105m south-east of and a cluster of cremation pits were excavated 310m east of the site (DU013-043).
Excavations followed on from a programme of testing undertaken in November 2018 by Tim Coughlan (Licence: 18E0662), where a total of 7 trenches (1,243 linear metres) were excavated and revealed a single cereal-drying kiln.
The excavation recorded a single earth-fast burnt pit feature, dated to the early medieval period (cal AD 589–659). The feature contained no artefacts but environmental evidence revealed the charred remains of cereals, including oat and barley (both dominant) plus some wheat alongside occasional weeds. Charcoal was also present and included ash, willow and some hazel, which was either used for fuel or was the remains of structural wattle rods in the collapsed copula dome.
Based on this evidence, the feature was interpreted as a simple pit-type cereal-drying kiln, which likely burnt down during use and collapsed on top of the last crop. The use and spread of such cereal-drying kilns, indicative of a rise in the use of arable farming, has been shown to have commenced in Leinster and the south-east in the Late lron Age and spread out across the country during the early medieval agricultural revolution, which saw Ireland move away from a pastoral into a mixed arable economy. A fragment of hazel charcoal produced a radiocarbon determination of cal AD 589–659, within the early medieval period.
All post-excavation works and specialist analyses have now been completed.
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