What is recorded here

Four thousand years ago, people heated water in Jigginstown by dropping burning stones into a basin, creating steam that hissed through the peat. They built a small wooden structure beside the trough, perhaps to sit in warmth or prepare food while the mound glowed. The road builders later removed the soil, revealing the burnt sandstone and stake holes that marked the edge of their ordinary days.

In 2005, archaeological monitoring (Licence no. 05E0442: www.excavations.ie) of topsoil-stripping associated with the construction of the Millennium Park Western Link Road identified a fulacht fia on the edge of a natural peat basin. It was subsequently excavated (Licence no. 05E0524: www.excavations.ie). A low, probably originally U-shaped mound (dims. L 8m N-S; Wth 6.8m) was composed of burnt sandstone, charcoal and peaty clay. A shallow rectangular trough (dims. L 1.5m; Wth 1.2m; D 0.2m) at the N edge contained a stake hole in each corner, suggesting it once contained a wooden structure. Some 23 stake-holes were found immediately S of the trough, of which 13 formed the outline of an oval structure. Material from the mound yielded a radiocarbon date of 3869 6 52 BP (2480-2190 cal BC at 2 sigma), while material from the trough returned 3926 6 71 BP (2620-2190 cal BC at 2 sigma). A second fulacht fia (KD019-028----) lay c. 400m to the W. Compiled by: Gearóid Conroy Date of upload: 10 June 2011

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