What is recorded here

Kidney-shaped pit, forty-four centimetres long, cut into Cork subsoil before the N8 bypass route was drawn. Oak charcoal inside dated 1100 to 790 BC, when people may have stored tools, food or firewood beneath that soil. Small stones crowded the sides like packing for something now lost. The pit is gone, filled back after testing, but it still marks a Bronze Age hand reaching into the earth ahead of a modern road.

Following archaeological testing carried out in 2002 in advance of the route of the N8 Rathcormac-Fermoy Bypass a kidney-shaped pit (0.44m N-S; 0.3m E-W; D 0.2m) was fully excavated in 2003. The pit, which cut into natural subsoil, contained a loose, mid-brown, silty clay with occasional stones and charcoal. Small stones were concentrated at the sides of the pit and, according to the excavator (Murphy 2006d, 35), it is possible that these stones may have been used as packing stones. The charcoal was identified as oak and was dated to 1100-790 cal. BC (ibid., 36). (Murphy 2006b, 35; Murphy 2006d) The above description is derived from 'The Archaeological Inventory of County Cork. Volume 5' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 2009). Date of upload: 22 December 2009

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