Fulacht fia in Causestown (slane Upper By.)

Situated on the broad floor of a valley with a canalized W-E stream c. 40m to the S. Archaeological testing (04E0608) by B. O’Ríordain on the site of an electricity substation (excavations.ie 2004:1203) identified burnt mound material that was subsequently completely excavated (04E0826) by T. C. Breen (excavations.ie 2004:1204). An oval or kidney-shaped area of broken and burnt stone of various densities (dims 9m NW-SE; c. 4.5m NE-SW) was recorded. It covered five circular or oval pits (diam. 0.5m; D 0.13m to dims 1.17m x 0.66m; D 0.24m) filled with charcoal-enriched soils that contained burnt bones. A small concentration of burnt bone was found at the side of one of the pits and there were some stakeholes in the subsoil. A few flints were recovered but almost 3000 fragments of calcined bone was retrieved from almost every context. The small percentage of identifiable bone proves largely to be animal but a fragment of human cranium was also present. Charcoal samples from the pits returned C14 determinations of 3030 +- 35 BP (SUERC 10095) which is c. 1400-1200 cal. BC and 3085 +- 35 BP (SUERC 10096) that is c. 1420-1270 cal. BC, placing it in the Middle Bronze Age. (Breen 2007) Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload; 25 March 2022