Burnt mound

The National Monuments Service's description

Situated on a gently undulating landscape. Archaeological testing (04E0920) by S. Delaney (2005) at Testing Area 7 of Contract 4 of the M3 motorway identified a burnt mound spread (excavations.ie 2004:1171) that was fully excavated (E003134) by P. Lynch (2010) as Nugentstown 3 in September 2006 (excavations.ie 2007:1361). An area of 1600 square metres was opened and two areas of broken and burnt stone and a charcoal spread were excavated. A pit (diam. 1.05m; D 0.5m) had a basal fill of charcoal-rich soil with heat-affected stones beneath a layer of brown/grey soil that may be ashes and heat-shattered stone that spread outside the pit. Nine flints and 45 sherds that were all worn and abraded from four fine and one domestic Beaker vessel were recovered from the pit. A fragment of alder charcoal provided a C14 date of 1915-1759 cal. BC (UBA 12068). This is too late for the pottery which might have been redeposited in the pit. A line of seven postholes roughly aligned E-W (L 16m) was just S of the spread and a fragment of ash charcoal from one returned a radiocarbon date of 1664-1522 cal. BC (UBA 11132). There were five other pits (diam. 0.3m; D 0.04m; to 1.6m x 1.1m; D 0.2m) in the area, four of them with charcoal-enriched soils but no artefacts were recovered from them, although three scrapers and an abraded sherd of fine Beaker were in the topsoil. (Lynch 2010, 5-8)

See the attached plan from Lynch (2010, fig. 5)

Compiled by: Michael Moore

Date of upload: 23 March 2022

References

Delaney, S. 2005 M3 Clonee-North of Kells; Contract 4, Navan - Kells and Kells Bypass. Report on Archaeological Assessment at Testing Area 7 in Athgaine Little and Nugentstown, County Meath. Licence: 04E0920. Unpublished report, Irish Archaeological Consultancy

Lynch, P. 2010 M3 Clonee – North of Kells, Contract 4, Navan to Kells and Kells Bypass. Final Report on Nugentstown 3, Co. Meath. Licence: E003134. Unpublished report, Irish Archaeological