Kiln - corn-drying

The National Monuments Service's description

Located on a rise on a gentle SW-facing slope, with a small NNW-SSE stream c. 200m to the SW. Archaeological excavation (03E1252) at Site 25 by R. Clutterbuck between January and May 2004 in advance of the N2 Finglas – Ashbourne road and by-pass completely excavated (excavations.ie 2004:1211) a number of prehistoric pits (dims 0.2m x 0.13m to 4.5m x 1m; D 0.34m) as well as five cereal-drying kilns of Early Iron Age date and one that was early medieval. A primary kiln (dims 2.68m x 0.2m; D 0.12m) filled with clay that had an ash and burnt animal bone content was cut by a smaller pit (diam. 0.7-1m; D 0.2m) with fills of burnt clay, a charcoal-rich clay that had barley grains and an upper fill with charcoal which produced a C14 date of 170-0 cal. BC (Wk-18210). Three further intersecting pits with similar fills were in the area, and it is thought that all were corn-drying kilns.

Another kiln (dims 1.48m x 0.86m; D 0.23m) with 6 fills including charcoal and barley grains was located c. 50m SSW of the others and it produced a C14 date of 20-220 cal. AD (Wk-18211). An early medieval corn-drying kiln was located c. 53m NE of the rath and c. 50m N of the group of early kilns. It consisted of a circular pit (diam. 1.1-1.3m; D 0.35m) with a flue (Wth 0.25-0.5m; L 2.2m plus) extending NE. The base of the cut was burnt and the single fill had frequent wheat and barley inclusions with occasional oats and other cereal grains. Blackthorn charcoal from the fill produced a C14 date of 410-600 cal. AD (Wk-17939). (Clutterbuck 2009a, 26) (Clutterbuck 2009, vol. 1, 19-20, 25-6; Clutterbuck and Lyons 2012, 35-7)

See the attached images from Clutterbuck (2009 figs 17, 11, 14)
ME039-009_2 Annotated site plan;
ME039-009002-_1 Early kilns;
ME039-009002-_2 Early medieval kiln;

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 Unpublished report, CRDS. 3 vols

Clutterbuck, R. 2009a Cookstown, Co. Meath: a medieval rural settlement. in Corlett, C. and M. Potterton (eds) Rural settlement in medieval Ireland in the light of recent archaeological excavations. 3, 27-47. Dublin, Wordwell

Clutterbuck, R. and S. Lyons 2012 3. Iron Age ritual and settlement at Cookstown, Co. Meath. In Corlett, C. and M. Potterton 2012: Life and Death in Iron Age Ireland: in the light of recent archaeological excavations, 35-51. Dublin, Wordwell