Enclosure

The National Monuments Service's description

In an area of cutaway blanket bog, located on the SW-facing slope of a low knoll, on the lower west-facing slopes of the Ox Mountains.
This enclosure is not shown on the 1837-8 and 1922 OS 6-inch maps. Following the discovery during peat cutting in 1961 of a flint scraper of Bronze Age type, this area of bog was inspected, and the enclosure was found beneath c. 0.7m of peat. A programme of survey and excavation (E000769) was subsequently carried out during the 1970's and 1980's (Herity (1981), and sampling for pollen analysis was also undertaken (O’Connell 1990).
The enclosure consists of a kidney-shaped area (c. 150m E-W; c. 100m N-S) defined by a drystone wall (Wth 1.9m base, 1m top; H 0.9m). The wall was built of small-medium-sized stones (max. dim. c. 0.3m) and directly overlay a gravelly clay subsoil. The excavation uncovered evidence for extensive areas of cultivation ridges (MA031-049004-) throughout the interior of the enclosure, and also outside it to N and S. A hut site (MA031-049003-) was found within the enclosure. A sample of charcoal, retrieved from beneath the enclosure wall, yielded a radiocarbon determination of 3245+/- 85 bp (1295 BC), indicating a Bronze Age date (Herity 198, 36-7). Analysis of the pollen cores, retrieved from within the enclosure, and from a lowlying area downslope to S, confirmed cereal cultivation, and further elucidated the chronology, indicating there were successive phases of clearance and farming activity over the course of several centuries from the Bronze Age into the Iron Age, before the area was finally engulfed in blanket bog (O’Connelly 1990, 261-70).

Compiled by: Jane O'Shaughnessy

Date of upload: 19 June 2018

References

O'Connell, M. 1990 Early land use in north-east County Mayo –the palaeoecological evidence. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 90C, 259-279.

Herity, M. 1981 A Bronze Age farmstead at Glenree, Co. Mayo. Popular Archaeology 2, 36-7.