County: Sligo Site name: Culleenamore
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SL013-091 Licence number: 22E0644
Author: Alan Healy and Rory Connolly
Site type: Midden
Period/Dating: N/A
ITM: E 561058m, N 834007m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.253416, -8.597593
SL013-091 (Site E) was sampled as part of a wider research project, Neolithic Marine Resource Exploitation in Atlantic Europe (NeoMarE), which is funded by an Irish Research Council Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellowship (GOIPD/2021/228) under the direction of Dr Rory Connolly and Dr Jessica Smyth, based at the School of Archaeology, University College Dublin, and Site Director Alan Healy of Archaeological Management Solutions (AMS). The project seeks to investigate a series of six coastal shell middens in County Sligo with the objective of assessing both timing and duration of midden deposition. The work aims to progress our understanding of past human occupation in Sligo’s coastal zone and establish how these sites relate to the wider archaeological landscape.
All of the sites included in the project are exposed in section and remain extremely vulnerable to substantial loss in the event of significant storm activity. Active erosion of archaeological material from the section faces is evident at each of the sites. The works carried out will mitigate against the loss of archaeological information to coastal erosion and accelerating climate change impacts.
Shell midden SL013-091 (Site E) is situated in the townland of Culleenamore, Co. Sligo on the eastern side of Ballysadare Bay, approximately 200m east-north-east of SL013-117 (Site D). The midden can be identified as a distinct stratum extending approximately 70m along the shore and varying between 0.3m and 0.8m in thickness, approximately 0.3m to 0.4m beneath the surface sod layer and elevated 0.4m above the adjacent foreshore. Midden material composed of predominantly oyster (Ostrea sp.) shell with concentrations of charcoal and organic rich sediments exposed in an eroding vertical face of a protruding headland which stretches into Ballysadare Bay on the southern side of Culleenamore Strand. Upon inspection, recent erosion and collapse of the section face was visible in places. The eastern end of the exposed section is also subject to considerable bioturbation in the form of burrowing.
The archaeological works at the site involved recording the exposed sections and collecting samples for radiocarbon dating. In total, five samples of oyster shell were collected from midden (SL013-091).
Strokestown, Co Roscommon
