Excavation - miscellaneous

The National Monuments Service's description

In gently undulating pasture, c. 260m to N of the Groody River. Not depicted on OS historic mapping. Identified in 2001 as human remains and two isolated features discovered during topsoil stripping in advance of the Limerick South Ring Road and subsequently excavated (License No. 01E0030) (Collins 2001, 4). The lower leg bones of a skeleton were revealed during monitoring of the destruction of a badger sett by the Wildlife Section of Dúchas (ibid). These were discovered 0.15m below the ground surface and consisted of the lower portions of the upper leg bones, two kneecaps and the upper portions of the lower leg bones (ibid, 15). The remainder of the lower legs were not in situ and these had been cut post-mortem, in antiquity. The rest of the body was missing from the pelvis upwards. It was clear from the remains that they had been cut in antiquity and post-mortem. The bones represent an adult individual of undetermined sex. The remains had been surrounded by a crude stone setting of twelve stones, which despite the partial recovery of this skeleton, remained undisturbed (ibid). Two isolated pits were recovered in the same field. Both features were circular in plan and showed evidence for heating or burning within them (ibid, 16-18). They were partly filled with heat-reddened subsoil and both had tentative evidence for flues. No finds were recovered from the features (ibid). Area now occupied by the Ballysimon M7 interchange visible on Google Earth orthophoto taken 19/11/2019.

Compiled by: Alison McQueen, Vera Rahilly and Caimin O’Brien

Date of upload: 26 June 2020

References

Coyne, F. 2002 Archaeological excavation of a flat cemetery at Peafield, Ballysimon, Co. Limerick. Licence no. 02E1408 Unpublished report submitted to the National Monuments Service, Department of Arts, Heritage & the Gaeltacht, Dublin.

Collins, T. 2001 Archaeological excavation of an isolated skeleton and isolated features at Ballysimon, Co. Limerick found during the Limerick Southern Ring Road archaeological monitoring project. Licence no. 01E0030. Unpublished report submitted to the National Monuments Service, Department of Arts, Heritage & the Gaeltacht, Dublin.