Burial

The National Monuments Service's description

Located on a gentle SW-facing slope, with a small NNW-SSE stream c. 200m to the SW. Archaeological excavation (03E1252) by R. Clutterbuck between January and May 2004 at Site 25 in advance of the N2 Finglas – Ashbourne road and by-pass excavated (excavations.ie 2004:1211) a crouched inhumation amongst other scattered prehistoric features. A shallow grave-cut (dims 0.85m x 0.65m; D 0.06m) had been badly damaged by ploughing and was cut by a pit (dims 0.47m x 0.23m; D 0.15m) that contained a flint flake and blade and two joining sherds of coarse Beaker pottery. The grave retained some of the remains of an adolescent or young adult lying on their left side in a crouched position with the head at N, but there were no grave goods directly associated with it. Nor was it possible to derive a radiocarbon date from the remains but a sample of wheat grain from the fill of the grave yielded a date of 0-130 cal. AD (Wk-18213), testifying to the disturbed nature of the deposit, while a charcoal sample from the truncating pit produced a more reliable if wide date of 2900-2250 cal. BC (Wk-17938). (Clutterbuck 2009, vol. 1, 15-17)

See the attached images from Clutterbuck (2009, vol. 1, 9, 17)
ME039-009_2 Annotated site plan;
ME039-009001-_1 Burial;

Compiled by: Michael Moore

Date of upload: 5 May 2022

References

Clutterbuck, R. 2009 N2 Finglas – Ashbourne Road Scheme. Report on Archaeological Excavation of Site 25, Cookstown, County Meath. Licence: 03E1252. Unpublished report, CRDS. 3 vols