What is recorded here

Boyerstown holds two earth rings, one thirty feet across, buried beside fields worked from the seventh century. The larger ring kept cremated bones in its ditch, dating to before the fields flourished. People may have walked past the older ring while farming the younger land, treating death and dinner as neighbours rather than rivals.

A geophysical survey by Bartlett-Clark (2002) in advance of the M3 motorway noted anomalies which targeted archaeological testing (04E0580) by N. Fairburn (2004) at Testing Area 7 could identify as archaeological features (excavations.ie 2004:1190). A large area of 3.2 ha was fully resolved (E003107) within the road-take by L. Clarke and T. Connell jointly over ten months beginning in June 2006 as Boyerstown 3 (excavations.ie 2006:1518; 2007:1269) as two archaeological areas separated by a NNE-SSW current field bank and drain, Area 1 to the SE and Area 2 to the NW. The principal findings are a series of subrectangular fields with rounded corners dating from the seventh to ninth centuries AD that are associated with a circular enclosure (ME025-088001-) which was almost completely outside the excavated area at W and is probably a rath. The remains of a second circular enclosure (ME025-088002-), also probably a rath, were within the excavation but it was so truncated that its context is difficult to establish. A small circular structure (ME025-088004-) outside the fields at S and four cereal-drying kilns (ME025-088003-) are closely contemporary but a Bronze Age hut-site (ME025-088006-) in a palisaded enclosure (ME025-088005-) are also recorded outside the field system at SE. RATH: Situated on a local height on a slight N-S ridge. In Area 2 a circular enclosure (int. diam. c. 22m) defined by a single fosse was detected in the gradiometer survey and it is largely preserved outside the road-take but a section (L 10m) of the fosse (Wth 1.8m; D 0.8m) was excavated at E. It had three layers, each with animal bone and cremated bone. A piece of charcoal from a deposit of cremated bone in the basal deposit yielded a C14 date of 434-644 cal. AD (Beta 247211). The fosse was cut by two linear features, both with cremated bone. (Clarke 2009, 18-19) See the attached plan from Clarke (2009, figs 11, 18) _01 site plan; _02 excavated portion of ditch; Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload: 11 April 2023 Clarke, L. 2009 M3 Clonee-North of Kells. Contract 3 – Navan Bypass. Report on the Archaeological Excavation of Boyerstown 3, Co. Meath. Licence: E003107. Final Unpublished report, Archaeological Consultancy

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