Platform - peatland

The National Monuments Service's description

This site was located in the industrial peatlands of Cloonshannagh Bog. It was first recorded in the 2013 Reassessment Peatland Survey as a platform exposed in section in an E-facing drain face for a width of 2.1m. It was composed of roundwood and brushwood (Whitaker 2014).

The site was excavated in 2015 (licence 15E0198) and dated to cal. 999-849 BC. The excavated site was composed of several layers of brushwood, roundwood and hurdle structures, forming a platform. The uppermost structure consisted of an E-W arrangement of closely placed heavy brushwood elements forming a surface located within the N half of the cutting. Underlying it was a similarly oriented, small, fragmentary hurdle.
A layer of sparsely laid roundwoods oriented NNW to SSE traversed the cutting from the NE corner towards the SW corner. Underneath a separating peat layer was a collection of four hurdle panels forming a surface. This surface was disturbed by several large root bowls and tree stumps.
The final substructural layer of wood was composed of a sparse arrangement of mainly NE-SW orientated roundwood and brushwood elements interspersed with tree stumps and root bowls.
Several toolmarked ends were noted. The elements were constructed from a wide variety of woods including alder, birch, blackthorn, hazel, oak, holly, pomoideae and willow. Bark was recorded on the majority of the hurdle rods (Coughlan and Whitaker 2019).

Compiled by: Femke Vleeshouwer/Jane Whitaker/Tim Coughlan

Date of upload: 15 April 2020

References

Coughlan, T & Whitaker, J 2019 Final excavation report Cloonshannagh Bog, Co Roscommon. Bord na Mona Peatland Archaeological Services 2014-2017. Unpublished report submitted to DOEHLG & BnM

Whitaker, J. 2014 Re‐assessment Peatland Survey 2013, Blackwater, Boora, Derrydreenagh, Mountdillon Group of Bogs, County Offaly, Longford, Westmeath and Roscommon. Unpublished report prepared by ADS for Bord na Móna.