Fulacht fia

The National Monuments Service's description

Situated on a gentle N-facing slope in the valley of the Skane River with a SSE-NNW section of the canalised stream c. 10m to the E. Archaeological testing (04E1499) by R. Tobin on the line of a sewer pipe identified an area of broken and burnt stones (excavations.ie 2004:1236), which was subsequently excavated (05E0690) within the wayleave by the L. McGowan as Athronan 1 (excavations.ie 2005:1150). A rectangular trough (dims 1.5m; x 0.84m; max. D 0.15m) with a single layer of burnt mound material was cut by a subcircular, straight-sided and flat-bottomed trough (dims 1.64-2m; max. D 0.5m) with four fills containing varying amounts of broken and burnt stone. Hazel charcoal from the primary fill of the earlier trough had a C14 date of 1930-1750 cal. BC. There were six small pits (diam. 0.68-0.78m; D 0.1m) in the immediate vicinity of the troughs and 11 at a greater distance, all containing some broken and burnt stone. Four larger pits (dims 0.6-1.1m; D 0.33-0.42m) with silt layers are thought to be cisterns or water-gathering pits, and a sample of hazel charcoal from one of these produced a C14 date of 2280-2030 cal. BC All these features were in the subsoil beneath a mound of broken and burnt stone (dims 8.75m x 2m plus; T 0.1-0.5m) with frequent charcoal inclusions and some bones, interleaved with silt lenses. This survives partially outside the cutting. An oblong pit (dims 2.85m x 1.94m; max. D 0.72m) at the S part of the cutting produced two sherds of medieval pottery from its topmost fill, but elsewhere three flint blades, a limestone blade and c. 15 piece of debitage were recovered. There were also some animal bones. (McGowan 2010)

Compiled by: Michael Moore

Date of upload; 26 February 2021

References

McGowan, L. 2010 Final Report on Archaeological Excavation, Athronan 1, Co. Meath. Licence: 05E0690. Unpublished report, CRDS