What is recorded here

Cakestown Glebe 2 held two hut-sites and a ring-ditch beside the River Blackwater, waiting beneath post-medieval furrows until road works opened them. One structure kept a possible northeast entrance and two hearths nested among postholes, while hazel charcoal returned a Bronze Age date and another sample dragged the timeline back toward the Mesolithic. The glebe may have served people across centuries, but its exact layout still resists a final drawing.

Located in a gently undulating landscape in the valley of the NW-SE River Blackwater, with a NW-SE section of the river c. 200m to the SW. 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 fully excavated (E003158) by P. Lynch (2010) in February - March 2007 as Cakestown Glebe 2 when 3325 square metres were opened. A ring-ditch, two hut-sites and a structure, together with evidence of Mesolithic habitation were recorded (excavations.ie 2007:1273). The upper levels of almost all features were cut by NE-SW post-medieval furrows. Structure 2 is located c. 6m E of Structure 1. It consists of a concentration of postholes (diam. c. 5m) but its lay-out is not entirely clear as no slot-trench is present. However, there may have been an entrance (Wth 2m) at NE, inside which and within clearings of the postholes in the interior were two hearth deposits (dims 1.24m x 1.1m; D 0.08m: 1.4m x 1.02m; D 0.18m), both with associated stakeholes. Some Late Bronze Age domestic pottery was recovered from a small pit, and small quantities of calcined bone was retrieved from some of the postholes. A sample of hazel charcoal from a posthole provided a C14 date of 1251-1013 cal. BC (UBA 12072), which is an appropriate date but a sample hazel charcoal from another posthole provided a date of 5220-4990 cal. BC (SUERC 29339) and must have been contaminated with Mesolithic material in the area. (Lynch 2011, 12-17) See the attached site-plan (fig. 5) and hut-site plan (fig. 6) from Lynch (2011) Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload: 11 March 2022

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