Embanked enclosure

The National Monuments Service's description

This monument is described by Stout (1991, 267) as:
This site is situated on flat terrain 170m S of the Mattock River. The soil is a gley derived from shale and limestone till. Closely associated with Monknewtown is Site S (ME019-017----), a probable passage tomb, located only 150m SE of the enclosure (O’Kelly 1978, 63). Fieldwork and excavations carried out by Sweetman revealed what would originally have been an almost circular area, 107m in maximum overall diameter, delimited by a flat-topped bank. The surviving section of the bank reaches 1.5m in maximum height and measures 11m wide at its base (Sweetman 1976, Pl. III). Eleven possible pit burials and a cremation in a Carrowkeel bowl were confined to the NW part of the site. Six of the pots produced remains of cremated bone; in one case (Burial VIII) the cremation was contained in a bucket-shaped pot. A habitation site and ring-ditch were exposed in the SW section of the enclosure. A small, 0.4m deep, V-shaped ditch, probably associated with the Beaker activity, ran in an arc from the centre of the enclosure to the inner edge of the bank. The burial and domestic activity are considered by the excavator to represent contemporary Beaker occupation of the site.
(Sweetman 1971; 1976; C. O’Kelly 1978, 63; Ó Ríordáin 1979, 158; Clare 1986, 311; Moore 1987m 40, No. 311)

Date of revision: 10 January 2017

This monument is subject to a preservation order made under the National Monuments Acts 1930 to 2014 (PO no. 19/1976).

References

Clare, T. 1986 Towards a reappraisal of henge monuments. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, 52, 281-316.

O'Kelly, C. 1978 (3rd ed.) Illustrated guide to Newgrange and the other Boyne monuments. Cork. Author.

Moore, M. 1987 Archaeological inventory of county Meath. Dublin. Stationery Office.

Thornton, G. 1980 A survey of the earthen enclosures of the Boyne Valley and related sites. MA thesis, University College, Dublin.

Sweetman, P.D. 1976 An earthen enclosure at Monknewtown, Slane, Co. Meath. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 76C, 25-73.

Stout, G. 1991 The embanked enclosures of the Boyne region. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 91C, 245-84.

Ó Ríordáin, S.P. 1979 (5th ed.) Antiquities of the Irish countryside. London and New York. Routledge.