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Hut site in Cookstown Great

Hut site

What is recorded here

Hot stones, fat meat, and a roof that leaned like a listening ear. Structure D still holds the shape of that kitchen, five metres north of its neighbour, with a roasting pit sealed in flat stones and charcoal buried beneath sand. The dates place it beside the water-cooking site around 1800 BC, when people were still building small, honest rooms for heat and company.
Structure D, located just 5m N of Structure C, is a D-shaped arc (dims c. 4m N-S; c. 3m E-W) of 12 post and stakeholes associated with a subcircular roasting pit (dims 1.14m x 0.92m; F 0.36m) that has oxidized edges and a basal fill of burnt soil and charcoal mixed with yellow silty clay. The main fill was a black sandy silt with frequent charcoal and heat-affected stones beneath black silty sand which was sealed with a layer of flat stones. This was beneath a layer of brown silty sand with burnt bone fragments. A sample of alder charcoal from the roasting pit provided a C14 date of 1923-1756 cal. BC (UBA 11096). The roasting pit is at the W edge of a D-shaped structure defined by an arc of stakeholes N-E-S with rather formless postholes that may have been re-used many times just N and S of the roasting pit, and two internal stakeholes. One pit (0.58m x 0.4m; D 0.12m) was on the line of the perimeter at S and another (dims 0.68m x 0.62m; D 0.18m) was c. 1m outside the structure at SE. This produced two sherds of pottery in the vase urn tradition and a sample of ash charcoal provided a C14 date of 1948-1776 cal. BC (UBA 11095). The radiocarbon determinations place this structure slightly later than Structure C but contemporary with fulacht fia B, c. 30m to the NW. (McLoughlin 2010, 13-15) See the attached plans adapted from McLoughlin 2010 (figs 5, 11) ME017-089_1 Location; ME017-089004-_1 Plan; Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload: 23 March 2022

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Recorded monument

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