Cairn - burial cairn

The National Monuments Service's description

On level ground which rises gently to the N but falls away to E, S and W, within field system CL006-044003-). Listed as 'Enclosure (possible)' in the SMR (1992) and the RMP (1996) under the number CL006-044----. A small low subcircular cairn (max. diam. c. 15m; H 1.3m) defined by a low kerb of thin flags laid on the flat inside of which is a line of thin vertical slabs. The E half of the monument was damaged during farm improvement works in the mid-90s. The damaged portion was partially excavated and repaired in 1997 under the direction of James Eogan (2002). The excavation showed the cairn to be a complex kerbed structure on a platform of limestone bedrock (ibid.), probably due to subsequent erosion of the surrounding bedrock (cf. Jones 2016). A cist (CL006-044002-) in the approximate centre of the cairn contained inhumed and cremated bone and a later inhumed burial was found within the body of the cairn (Eogan 2002). A sample of the inhumed bone from the central cist returned a Chalcolithic date (2460–2140 cal BC) and a sample from the burial in the body of the cairn an Early Bronze Age date (1880–1610 cal BC). Finds included a perforated dog tooth, a glass bead, a possible stone pin sharpener, a chert scraper and a flint blade and a sherd of pottery (Eogan 2002, 127). The pottery has since been tentatively assigned to the Beaker tradition (Carlin 2012, 185). The excavation also showed the cairn to be contemporary with the surrounding field system (CL006-044003-) (Eogan 2002, 132). The field system, an enclosure 10m NE (CL006-146----) and other monuments in the townland were subsequently the focus of an M. Litt thesis (Carey 2009) and have been usefully compared with the Early Bronze Age remains on Roughan Hill and on the Carran Plateau (Jones, Carey and Hennigar 2011).

Compiled by: Mary Tunney and Ros Ó Maoldúin

Date of upload: 27 July 2021

References

Jones, C. 2016 Dating ancient field walls in karst landscapes using differentil bedrock lowering. Geoarchaeology, 31 (2), 77-100.

Eogan, J. 2002 Excavations at a cairn in Coolnatullagh townland, Co. Clare. North Munster Antiquarian Journal 42, 113-50.

Carlin, N. 2012. A proper place for everything: the character and context of Beaker depositional practice in Ireland. Unpublished PhD thesis, University College Dublin.

Carey, O. 2009 Coolnatullagh: a Beaker Period/Early Bronze Age secular and ritual landscape in the eastern Burren. Unpublished M. Litt thesis, National University of Ireland Galway.

Jones, C., Carey, O. and Hennigar, C. 2011 Domestic production and the political economy in prehistory: evidence from the Burren, Co. Clare. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 111C, 33-58.

Eogan, J. 1998 Coolnatullagh, prehistoric cairn and field system. In I. Bennett (ed. ) Excavations 1997: summary accounts of archaeological excavations in Ireland, 5-6. Bray, Wordwell.