County: Kerry Site name: Knockanacuig
Sites and Monuments Record No.: Ke029 112 Licence number: 22E0041 ext.
Author: Michael Connolly
Site type: Hilltop Enclosure & Barrow
Period/Dating: Multi-period
ITM: E 481947m, N 614655m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.270901, -9.729770
The first season took place of a proposed five-year research excavation run as a community archaeology project with a view to investigating the levelled site of a large hilltop enclosure and internal mound/barrow.
The 2023 excavations followed on from an exploratory trench open across the site of the mound/barrow in 2022 and extended that trench to effectively open and excavate the north-west quadrant of the site and an area outside it to the north where material had been identified in 2022.
This area to the north produced evidence for a perfectly square slot trench and post-built structure with a number of pits, post-holes and linear features outside it to the east. The structure measures 6m square and would appear to date to the mid-late Neolithic.
The excavations on the site of the mound/barrow indicate a multi-period structure which appears to initially date to the late Neolithic but was subsequently enlarged and added to in the Late Bronze Age and the Iron Age when its final form comprised a mound c.4.5m high surrounded by two earthen banks with a 2m deep intervening ditch. Radiocarbon dating indicates theses banks and ditch date to the Iron Age while the earlier burial mound at the centre was added to at least in the Late Bronze Age and possibly again during this final phase of construction.
Excavations at the site will continue in 2024.
Kerry County Council, Tralee
