What is recorded here

Hot stones shattered in water, filling the air with steam and marking the border between human tool and raw nature. The trough cut through subsoil, waiting for fire and flooding. Cherry and willow charcoal date the violence to before recorded memory, while the level landscape retains the shape of that repeated transformation.

Situated in a level landscape c. 5m E of a canalised NNE-SSW stream. Archaeological monitoring (12E0387) of a sewer pipe by B. O’Hara (excavations.ie 2013:116) identified a spread of broken and burnt stone that was fully excavated under the same licecne. A layer of broken and burnt stone (diam. 6.6-6.72m; max. D 0.49m) was partially covered by silts and lay over a subcircular, straight-sided trough (diam. 1.6-2m; max. D 0.25m) with a flat base cut in the subsoil. The trough contained two fills with different quantities of heat-shattered stone, and a sample of cherry charcoal from the base produced a C14 date of 2111-1887 cal. BC. A second subcircular trough (diam. 1.5-1.77m; max. D 0.32m) with two stones set in its rounded base was nearby and had a single fill of silty clay with heat-shattered stone. A sample of willow from this fill produced a C14 date of 2291-2050 cal. BC. No artefacts were recovered from the monument. (O’Hara and Hourihan 2014) Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload; 27 September 2021 O’Hara, B. and Hourihan, S. 2014 Final Report on Archaeological Excavations at Oldcastle Townland, Oldcastle, County Meath. Licence: 12E0387. Unpublished report, Rubicon Heritage

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