House - Bronze Age

The National Monuments Service's description

This house site was revealed during the course of research excavations in the W half of the inner enclosure at Dún Aonghasa (GA110-039----). This example, identified as structure 8b, overlay the S end of a bedrock hollow (see GA110-09003-). It was defined by a short curving section of walling at N, an internal hearth and the remains of an associated occupation deposit. The wall consisted of a contiguous setting of six low limestone blocks forming an arc (C 2.48m), which continued in under the foundations of the wall of the inner enclosure at W. While the surviving section was too incomplete to determine its original plan or size, it is likely that it was circular or D-shaped and c. 4m in internal diameter. The construction of the wall suggested that it could not have been much higher originally and that it may have supported an organic superstructure, though no post-holes were identified. The stone-lined box-like hearth (int. dims. 0.4m x 0.4m) and a small concentration of limpet shells represented the only identifiable habitation surface within the house. Finds included cooking ware, bone points, a bone pin, a fragment of a chert axe, part of a clay mould, a bronze rivet or rod and two pieces or worked pumice. Fish bones were found in the immediate vicinity of the hearth. A sample of animal bone yielded a radiocarbon date of 930-810 cal. BC. The house was disturbed by the subsequent construction of structures 2 (GA110-039007-) and 5 (GA110-039006-), which overlay its interior from NW to SE and by the insertion of a burial (GA110-039015-) into the S part of the hollow (Cotter 2012, vol. 1, 300-302, 310; vol. 2, 246).

Compiled by: Olive Alcock

Date of upload: 22 June 2020

References

Cotter, C. 2012 The western stone forts project. Excavations at Dún Aonghasa and Dún Eoghanachta. 2 vols. Dublin. Wordwell Ltd.