Burial in Sheastown

On an E-facing slope on the W bank of the River Nore. Human remains discovered during quarrying in a sandpit in 1971. Bone was exposed over an area c. 35m x 50m. Four graves were excavated consisting of unlined shallow pits in the surface of the gravel deposit, aligned E–W. Each grave contained a single extended inhumation and some contained other disarticulated bones (in all, the remains of four males and two females were found). A small, tanged, iron knife was found alongside the left femur with the finger bones close to it in one of the graves containing a male. Radiocarbon dating yielded a date of 1576+/- 35 BP or AD 413-561. (Cahill and Sikora 2011, vol. 2, 73-5) Compiled by: Mary Tunney Date of upload: 6 February 2013

A Neolithic inhumation burial; dating to the 4th–3rd millennium BCE. Its significance lies in providing evidence of early agricultural communities and burial practices in the River Nore region.