What is recorded here

Burnt mound in Clowanstown (skreen By., Skreen Ed.) is a ruined kitchen where water was heated with stones before the M3 swallowed the field. The date 2457-2026 cal. BC belongs to ash charcoal, not necessarily the last time the mound hissed. People may have gathered there to cook, clean tools or mark a boundary, while hazel wood cracked under the heat. What remains is a black smear of clay, sandstone and memory on a shallow slope.

Located on a slight N-facing slope. Archaeological testing (04E0418) by J. Dempsey of Testing Area 4, Contract 2, prior to the construction of the M3 motorway identified three spreads of burnt mound material. The area was fully excavated (E003065) by M. Mossop as Clowanstown 2 (excavations.ie 2006:1534) in August- September 2006 when it proved to be two burnt mound spreads and a fulacht fia. In Area A, burnt mound material (dims 4.5m x 3m; T 0.1m) consisting of a soft black, charcoal-stained clay/silt with some burnt sandstone was incorporated a tree-bole (D c. 0.25m). The spread was just N of an oval pit (dims 1.95m x 0.81m; D 0.31m) filled by a peaty clay with charcoal inclusions over a grey clay. The charcoal was dominated by hazel, but a sample of ash charcoal produced a C14 date of 2457-2026 cal. BC (BETA 241290). Five medieval or post-medieval furrows were W of the mound, and a flint blade was recovered from the topsoil. (Mossop and Ruddle 2008, 2-3) Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload: 20 April, 2022

Burnt mound, Late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age. The site indicates domestic or ritual activity involving heat, typical of fulacht fiadh in Atlantic Europe.

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