Cist

The National Monuments Service's description

Situated in the upper centre of Poulawack cairn (CL009-032002-). Excavated by the Third Harvard Archaeological Expedition in Ireland, under Hugh O’Neill Hencken (Hencken and Movius 1935), who subsequently restored the cairn. ‘Grave 3’ in Hencken’s schema, this irregular subrectangular cist (int. dims. 0.9m N–S; 0.5m E–W; H 0.4m) comprised one W and two E sidestones set on their long edges, and five capstones laid transversely. Three irregular slabs made up the cist floor, on which were found disturbed and fragmentary human skeletal remains, probably of a young adult female placed in a contracted position on its right side facing E (Hencken and Movius 1935, 201).

Together with an adjacent cist (CL009-032013-) located c. 1.5m to the S, this cist was constructed within a suboval pit (c. 6.5m N–S; c. 4m E–W; D c. 1.8m) dug into the top of the cairn (ibid., 199). This cist 'Grave 3' (CL009-032014-) was radiocarbon-dated to between c. 1610 cal BC and c. 1432 cal BC (Brindley and Lanting 1992, 16). This falls within the final broad phase of mortuary activity at Poulawack cairn, during the mid-second millennium BC, when the burial 'Grave 1' (CL009-032012-) was also added, and possibly also 'Grave 7', a cist (CL009-0032018-) (ibid.) although the evidence for the Grave 7 date is equivocal.

The following images have been uploaded:

CL099-032014-_01.jpg Photograph of exposed cists (Hencken and Movius 1935, Pl. XX, Fig. 3)
CL009-032014-_02.jpg Cist plan and section (Hencken and Movius 1935, Fig. 5)

Compiled by: Mary Tunney and Conn Herriott

Date of upload: 12 January 2022

References

Brindley, A. and Lanting, J. 1992 Radiocarbon dates from the cemetery at Poulawack, Co. Clare. Journal of Irish Archaeology 6, 13–17.

Hencken, H. and Movius, H. L. 1935 A cairn at Poulawack County Clare: with a report on the human remains. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 5, 191–222.