Burnt pit

The National Monuments Service's description

New monument discovered in 2003 during excavations of the M7 Heath-Mayfield motorway scheme by Jonathan Dempsey of Archaeological Consultancy Services Ltd under licence number 03E0735. This site was located in an area of deep fill and was protected and reburied and preserved in situ. Described as Jamestown A this site consisted of a burnt spread measuring 1.05m N-S by 0.55m by 0.04m deep (Bennett 2006, 283).
The site is described on the NRA database as 'The site is situated west of the Grand Canal, east of the Jamestown Road and north-west of Jamestown House. A small pond and a spring lie to the south-east. To the east of Jamestown or Ballyteigeduff 2, the land falls gently to the Grand Canal and, to the west, rises to the Jamestown Road. The prior land use was arable. A single feature was identified at Jamestown or Ballyteigeduff 2. Pit This truncated pit (1 m by 1 m by 0.1 m) had smooth sides that were convex in shape and sloped gradually to a flat base which sloped north-south. The fill of this pit was comprised of a friable black silty clay with frequent charcoal flecks, occasional fragments of charcoal and occasional sub-angular stone fragments up to 50 mm in length, some of which were heat-fractured and fire-reddened. Within this context, occasional lenses of stiff heavily oxidised orange-red silty clay were visible. No finds were recovered from this context' (http://archaeology.nra.ie/Home/ViewResult/64be0870-7c80-4441-ab3b-4ffdb2a22e93, accessed 21 January 2013).

Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien

Date of upload: 21 January 2013

References

Bennett, I. (ed.) 2006 Excavations 2003: summary accounts of archaeological excavations in Ireland. Bray. Wordwell.