Cremation pit

The National Monuments Service's description

Pit excavated by Michael Connolly for Aegis Archaeology under licence No. 00E0863, the results of which were summarised as follows; 'During the unlicensed monitoring of the digging of house foundation trenches for a private dwelling at Rockfield, Ballymacelligott, a large pit was partially truncated by the mechanical excavator. The pit was truncated on its south-western side, but around two-thirds of its circumference was still extant. The remaining portion of the pit measured 1.06m north-west/south-east by 0.74m and 0.6m deep.
The pit was filled with three different layers of material: an upper topsoil layer, a middle layer of grey, silty clay and a lower layer of pure wood charcoal, 0.27m deep. Fragments of cremated bone were recovered from the lower two layers of fill, as were numerous heat-shattered red sandstone cobbles.
The cream-coloured gravel subsoil that formed the walls of the pit had been baked hard and fire-reddened by in situ burning. The lower fill of pure charcoal appeared to have been redeposited, possibly following the retrieval of cremated bone, as it rested on a large unburnt lump of quartz, placed in the base of the pit.
The pit is best interpreted as the site of a cremation, similar to those already excavated in the Tralee area, such as that at Rockfield I, excavated by Tracy Collins (Excavations 1999, 115, 99E0323)' (Connolly 2002, 148).

Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien

Date of upload: 30 March 2022

References

Connolly, M. 2002 Rockfield, Pit. in I. Bennett (ed.) Excavations 2000: summary accounts of archaeological excavations in Ireland, 148, No. 441.