Fulacht fia in Commons OF Lloyd

Located in a slight fold opening out to the NW and situated towards the bottom of the NE-facing slope of the Hill of Lloyd. Archaeological testing (04E0913) by J. Roynane (2005) at Testing Area 14 of Contract 4 of the M3 motorway (excavations.ie 2004:1345) identified archaeological material on the route of the N52 Kells link road that was partially excavated by Y. Whitty (E003157) in March 2006 as Commons of Lloyd 1 (2010) when a fulacht fia was completely excavated and part of a ring-ditch was also sampled (excavations.ie 2007:1289). A layer of charcoal-rich and heat-affected stones (dims 10.5m x 7.5m; max. T 0.3m) was immediately E of an oval pit (dims 2.65m N-S; 1.08m E-W; D 0.33m) with a rounded bottom. The basal layer of the pit had burnt stone that lies beneath two layers of yellow/brown sand and it probably functioned as a trough. The mound contained seeds of wild and cultivated plants, and a sample of hazel charcoal from it yielded a C14 date of 1113-928 cal. BC (UBA 11125). The ring-ditch is c. 20m to the NW. (Whitty 2010) See the attached plan (R) from Whitty (2010, fig. 5) Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload: 10 March 2022