What is recorded here

Barrow is a small ditch circle in County Cork where a narrow slot held cremated human bone and charcoal around 400 BC. The road bypass cut across the land later, exposing the buried fire and the token deposit inside the clay. It stands beside a larger group of ancient monuments, suggesting the area marked memory, ceremony or boundary for the people who lived there.

A ditch barrow was uncovered during monitoring of the remaining untested road-take on the N8 Rathcormac-Fermoy Bypass between June 2004 and March 2005. Subsequent excavation revealed a circular area (diam. c. 4.25m) defined by a fosse (Wth 0.81-1m; D 0.31m) best preserved along the N arc. The fills in the fosse were of sandy clays. Flecks of charcoal indicate that burning had occurred in the area when the fosse was open. A second phase of activity occurred after the fosse was back-filled and consisted of a narrow fosse or slot being dug along and into the fills on the inner edge of the original ditch barrow. The fills of this second fosse were charcoal rich and included fragments of cremated human bone. The small amount of bone recovered suggests that it was only a token deposit. Evidence of burning in-situ from the upper fills of this second fosse produced a radiocarbon date of cal. BC 349-43 (UB-6770). The excavator suggests that this ditch barrow may be associated with the complex of Bronze Age/Iron Age monuments (CO044-073001- - CO044-073014-) immediately to the NE that were also excavated on the route of the N8. (Reilly 2006, 1-36) The above description is derived from 'The Archaeological Inventory of County Cork. Volume 5' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 2009). Date of upload: 22 December 2009

Ditch barrow, likely dating to the Early Bronze Age. Its discovery provides insight into burial practices and landscape use in the region during the prehistoric period.

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