Concentric enclosure in Dowth

Located on a bluff overlooking a NW-SE section of the River Boyne, which is c. 100m to the SW. This monument was first identified from a LiDAR Survey of the Brú na Bóinne World Heritage Site (Davis et al. 2013), and was confirmed by a magnetic gradiometry survey (12R0080) conducted during 2012. Close analysis of these results identifies three widely-spaced ditch features (ext. dims c. 123m E-W; c. 104m N-S). The innermost enclosure (diam. c. 60m) has at least one possible Man-made underground passage identified as a trench in the NW interior, while a rectangular house site is identifiable in the NE interior. Two other house-sites are in the vicinity and a line of at least three rectangular fields (dims c. 40m x c. 30m) extend NNW from the innermost ditch feature. (Ní Lionáin and Davis 2016, 134-5) Two cores were extracted (16E0347) by Clíodhna Ní Lionáin and other from the inner (Wth of top 8-9m; min. D 1.5m) and middle (Wth of top 6-7m; min. D 2.68m) ditches of this monument (excavation.ie 2016:848) for chemical analysis. The higher phosphate values of the inner fosse suggest that it has accumulated more settlement debris. Compiled by Michael Moore Date of revised upload: 9 December, 2016 Amended: 3 February 2021