What is recorded here

Seven centuries before written history, hands dragged hot stone into water at Townparks, steering steam through meat or cloth. The road took the ground in 2006, but the rectangular trough, scorched pits and hazel charcoal preserved the rhythm of that kitchen. A corroded ring-brooch lay above the mound, perhaps lost by someone who ate there, loved there or fled suddenly. Distance and forgetting cannot erase the warmth those stones gave back.

Archaeological centre-line testing (04E583) by A. O’Connell (2005) at Testing Area 10 of Contract 3 in advance of the M3 motorway identified a burnt spread (excavations.ie 2004:1346) that was resolved (E003114) within the road-take by K. Martin (2009) as a part of Townparks 2 in February 2006 (excavations.ie 2006:1645) where two fulachta fia, c. 70m apart were recorded. This large spread (dims 12.5m E-W; 5m plus N-S; T 0.17m) extends outside the road-take to the NW and overlay two further concentrations of burnt mound material but at the bottom these layers overlay a large rectangular pit (dims 1.79m 0.92m; D0.15m) that was just S of a cluster of 19 stake-holes. The pit was filled with a silty clay that had some charcoal flecks. There were three other pits, the largest (dims 2m x 0.46-0.8m; D 0.2m) of which had irregular sides and evidence of scorching on its base. Its fill had more plentiful charcoal as well as evidence of burnt stone and some of the other pits also had charred bases. The trough was rectangular (dims 1.68m plus N-S; 1.45m E-W; D 0.38m) and extended outside the excavation to the NW. Its burnt stone and silty clay fill provided a C14 date of 2130-1890 Cal. BC (Beta 237330) from hazel charcoal. A badly corroded ring-brooch was recovered from the ploughsoil over the burnt mound. (Martin, 2009, 1-3) See the attached plan from Martin (2009, fig. 8) Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload: 13 April, 2023 Martin, K. 2009 M3 Clonee-North of Kells. Contract 3 – Navan Bypass. Report on the Archaeological Excavation of Townparks 2, Co. Meath. Licence: E003114. Final Unpublished report, Archaeological Consultancy Services O’Connell, A. 2005 M3 Clonee-North of Kells. Contract 3 – Navan Bypass. Report on Archaeological Assessment at Testing Area 10, Townparks, Robinrath and Knockumber, County Meath. Licence: 04E0583. Unpublished report, Archaeological Consultancy Services

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