County: Wicklow Site name: Glenheron Employment Lands, Charlesland
Sites and Monuments Record No.: n/a Licence number: 19E0195
Author: Liza Kavanagh
Site type: Burnt mound spread, kiln, pits and spreads
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 729223m, N 709775m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.122844, -6.069308
Excavation of five archaeological areas (AA) took place in June 2019 at Charlesland, Co. Wicklow at a site known as Glenheron Employment Lands.
AA1 consists of a burnt mound spread acutely disturbed by modern drainage, agricultural and construction activities. Due to the degree of disturbance it is difficult to establish if any of the burnt mound spread survives in its original location. Two linear features, filled only with burnt mound spread, may be part of water management activities directly related to the burnt mound. A small pit filled with burnt mound material was excavated to the east of the disturbed spread.
AA2 comprises a pit and a kiln consisting of a kiln bowl and flue cut through an earlier pit. The pit was filled with two gravelly deposits with charcoal inclusions. It was not excavated in close proximity to any other features. The kiln feature comprised a kiln bowl, scorched red on its north, east and south-east sides. This is due to the location of a sub-circular flue extending east-south-east from the bowl. The base of the kiln is lined with a lens of charcoal and a deposit of stone. The stone appears as a surface at the base which may have been related to the drying floor or the deposits above it which contain oxidised clay inclusions. A sub-oval pit, truncated on its north-north-west side to the south of the kiln bowl, contained a single gravely charcoal-flecked deposit similar to one of the principal fills of the kiln bowl.
AA3 contains a pit and a north-east/south-west running drain. The sub-rectangular pit contained deposits of animal bone and charcoal. A single flint artefact was recovered from the pit, one of eight recovered from the site as a whole.
AA4 comprised of two spreads, one cut by a furrow and a drain. The truncated spread was a charcoal-flecked clay, while the other spread was composed of slag. This metallurgical waste comprised large dense pieces of a occasionally orange rust-flecked material which may be fragments of smithing hearth cakes indicative of iron working and smithing.
AA5 consisted of a pit (0.33m in diameter) containing a token deposit of burnt bone.
c/o IAC Ltd, Unit G1 Network Enterprise Park, Kilcoole, Co. Wicklow
