Enclosure in Ratoath, County Meath

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Located at the NW end of a NW-SE spur. This feature was preserved beneath a twentieth century farmyard. Archaeological monitoring (04E0218) of the removal of the farm structures identified 20 archaeological features, most of which were resolved. Feature C is a circular area (diam. 37m) defined by a ditch (Wth 1m) with a narrow entrance at SW. The ditch has numerous fills, largely silts, but the upper fill contained charcoal and it might be a re-cut. A cow skull was in the ditch at N. A spindle whorl and prehistoric pottery, possibly Grooved ware, was recovered from the ditch. Surface finds included worked and rough flint and chert which were concentrated in the W part of the interior. In the E interior was a circular feature (diam. 9m) defined by a continuous ditch (Wth 0.3-0.6m) with a U-shaped profile that was filled largely with silty clays. There is some evidence of burning, and burnt bone and a fragment of a blue glass bead where recovered. The excavator regards this as a house structure although there was no hearth or entrance. The large enclosure is cut by two N-S ditches at W and a N-S field drain cuts the enclosure at E. A number of pits are in the area, some of which could be interpreted as kilns. (Dehaene 2004, 2007) Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload: 14 September 2020

From the National Monuments Service (Archaeological Survey of Ireland) record ME044-044001

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Photo credits

Jonathan Billinger / Geograph via Wikimedia Commons, commons.wikimedia.org
National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
Maker not stated on source page, commons.wikimedia.org
Jonathan Billinger, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
Maker not stated on source page, www.alamy.com
Maker not stated on source page, en.wikipedia.org
C O'Flanagan, Geograph · CC BY-SA 2.0

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