Excavation - miscellaneous

The National Monuments Service's description

Eighteen potential archaeological sites were found during monitoring of topsoil-stripping on the Celbridge Interchange, from April to December 2001 (Licence no. 01E0306). Most were resolved through subsequent excavation. The scheme was approximately 4km in length and ran from Celbridge to Leixlip through gently undulating land with a mixture of arable, pasture and woodland. The southern part of the scheme runs through an area heavily influenced by 18th-century landscape design, with avenues, woodland and tree-lined field boundaries centred on the early 18th-century house at Castletown.
This site (Site 17) lay 15.4m to the south-east of Site 16 (KD011-054----). The area measured 6m by 4m and was visible as two charcoal-rich deposits. The site can be divided into two phases. Phase 1 is represented by a northerly orientated bottle-shaped cut. It was 4m in total length and 1.08m wide in the oval part. The 1.3m southern projection was 0.25m wide. It was dug into the natural subsoil. It had vertical sides in the flue and gradual concave sides in the main oval section. The base was flat. The main, widest, part of the cut had eight fills. Some of these fills partly filled the flue; two were confined to the flue only. The fills were rich in charcoal and ash, and some contained burnt clay and bone.
At first it was thought that this feature might have been a corn-drying kiln. A portion of one of the charcoal-rich fills was sieved in an attempt to identify some charred seed remains. None were found. All the identified fragments of bone found in the fills were of juvenile pig and had been burned at 300-600ºC. Because of the ash deposits and cremated bone fragments it can be suggested that this feature was a pig-roasting pit. It is not possible to determine whether it is contemporary with the features on Site 16. Phase 2 is represented by an east-west-running furrow, probably contemporary with the furrows on Site 16 to the north. (www.excavations.ie)

Compiled by: Gearóid Conroy

Date of upload: 10 June 2011