Ring-ditch

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 24 in advance of the N2 Finglas – Ashbourne road and by-pass completely excavated (excavations.ie 2004:1211) a ring-ditch that consisted of two fosses. There were a number of prehistoric pits (dims 0.2m x 0.13m to 4.5m x 1m; D 0.34m) in the area as well as kilns (ME019-009003-) of later prehistoric date. The inner area (diam. 6.6m) was defined by a fosse (0.4m; D 0.27m) separated by a berm (Wth c. 3.5m) from the outer fosse (Wth 0.54m; D 0.45m) (ext. diam. 15m). The lowest fill in the outer fosse had some animal bone and some cereal grains. The outer fosse was partly covered by a more compact sandy soil at SSW which may have been introduced to make an entrance (Wth 1.7m). The inner ditch had five fills, and an area (L 1.5m) at SSE had a more compact sandy fill that could have formed a secondary entrance. Two sherds of pottery and a brown glass bracelet with a D-shaped cross-section were recovered from the primary fill of the outer fosse, and a single sherd, two flints and two pieces of a cast penannular ring, were in the final fill of the inner fosse. Two charcoal samples from the final fill of the inner fosse produced C14 dates of 360-50 cal. BC (Wk-16313) and 360-160 cal. BC (Wk-16314). Three pits (dims 1.42m x 0.68m; D 0.1m to 1.52m x 1m; D 0.32m) with evidence of burning in the base and charcoal inclusions in the fill of each appear to have been deliberately positioned outside the outer fosse at N, SE and SW. Blackthorn charcoal from the N pit produced a C14 date of 0-230 cal. AD (Wk-17940). (Clutterbuck 2009, 20-5; Clutterbuck and Lyons 2012, 37-44)

See the attached site plan from Clutterbuck 2009 (fig. 12)

Compiled by: Michael Moore

Date of upload: 5 May 2022

References

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

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