2021:589 - Portraine Demesne AA8, Donabate, Dublin

A cutting of c. 405 sq. m. contained the degraded remains of a burnt mound, a type of site that used heated stone to heat/boil water for one or a variety of domestic, industrial or ritual purposes. The site comprised six subsoil-cut pits filled with varying amounts of typical burnt mound material, i.e. heat-affected stone in a dark, charcoal-rich soil matrix. The largest pit was stepped on one side and had a deeper section that breached the water table, deemed likely to have functioned as a well or water source for the burnt mound process. A shallow oval/rectangular shaped pit contained four post-holes in or near each corner suggesting supports for the use of a lining for the pit. While shallow, it is likely highly truncated but still deemed to be most likely to have functioned as a trough for the burnt mound process. The other pits were small and irregular and of uncertain function. A fragment of ash (fraxinus) charcoal from the basal fill of one of these irregular pits returned a radiocarbon date of 2460-2140 cal. 2δ BC (UBA 48276; 3882+/- 39BP) placing activity here in the Chalcolithic (c. 2500-2200 BC) or Early Bronze Age (c. 2200-1700 BC). Two flint flakes and a bipolar flint core were retrieved during the clean-back of the site. An extremely limited number of charcoal fragments were retrieved from the bulk soil samples with ash dominating, followed by cherry/blackthorn. The dominance of ash was seen in a similarly dated burnt mound in neighbouring Corballis townland. No animal bone or further artefacts were retrieved that might provide supporting evidence for what activities might have taken place in the site.

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