Barrow - mound barrow

The National Monuments Service's description

Monument surveyed in 2015 and described by McGuinness (2015, 55) as following: ‘With nothing visible by the time an ASI fieldworker visited the site on 6/8/79 [SMR file], this earthen mound or tumulus had been mostly destroyed by the time of its excavation in 1958, with only the NE quadrant being fairly intact and outline of remainder just traceable, from which Prendergast estimated an original diameter of 8m and a central height of ‘probably not more than 1m’. A single cutting on NW circumference revealed no evidence of a surrounding ditch, nor was there surface evidence for one farther out. Mound was of compact brown earth with some stone, on a layer of pasty grey clay which included a layer of charcoal covering the original ground surface including the central area; from the surviving stratigraphy, excavator believed mound to belong to a single construction phase, with the grey layer interpreted as a layer of turfs spread over the charcoal before rest of mound was constructed. Excavation of surviving portion of mound, comprising most of NE quadrant, uncovered four discrete cremation burials or collections of burials, along with three small pockets of cremated bone. Burial A, the remains of an adult, were covered by an Early-Middle Bronze Age Cordoned Urn; Burial B, containing at least one adult, had the barest stone protection and no grave goods; Burial C, comprising a large pile of cremated bones including adult remains and a c. 16-year-old youth, was enclosed by a half-destroyed polygonal cist, and contained two men’s shaving razors of a similar type to those found in the Knockast mound-barrow (Kavanagh 1991, 98-100); Burial D comprised some unprotected and unaccompanied adult remains. Given the poor condition of the bones from the burials and cremation-pockets, the total number of bodies and age and gender distribution could not be ascertained beyond the recognition of 5+ bodies including adults and children. In the charcoal layer under core of mound was found a curved piece of thin bronze of unknown function; also found somewhere near centre of mound, at the lowest level, were fragments of a miniature vessel or Pygmy Cup. The excavator took all this material to be contemporary as the mound was a single-phase construction. The ASI fieldworker who visited the site in 1979 was informed of similar pots having been found by a Mr Ross while working his land prior to the excavation of the barrow ‘to the E side of the road [from the barrow]’, suggesting the possibility that the barrow was just one component of a larger Bronze Age cemetery [SMR file]. (Prendergast 1960; Waddell 1990, 150-51; Kavanagh 1976, 375-6; 1977, 89; 1991, 98)’.

Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien based on details provided by David McGuinness.

Date of upload: 9 February 2016

References

Waddell, J. 1990 The Bronze Age burials of Ireland. Galway University Press.

Kavanagh R.M. 1991 A reconsideration of razors in the Irish earlier Bronze Age. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 121, 77-104.

Kavanagh, R.M. 1977 Pygmy cups in Ireland. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 107, 61-95.

Kavanagh, R.M. 1976 Collared and cordoned cinerary urns in Ireland. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 76C, 349-350.

McGuinness, D. 2015 The prehistoric burial mounds and related monument of County Westmeath. Part III - Monuments in Northern and Eastern Westmeath (Baronies of Delvin and Fore, and Parts of Baronies of Farbill, Fartullagh, Moygoish, and Moyashel & Magheradernon). Unpublished survey funded by Westmeath County Council in association with Westmeath Archaeological and Historical Society.

Prendergast, E. 1960 Burial Mound of the Bronze Age at Kilmore, Co. Westmeath. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 90, 5-9.