What is recorded here

Kilmainham 1A preserved a Middle Bronze Age circular hut with a projecting porch and an internal partition that may have separated living spaces. People likely stood inside that shallow fold, watched the rock outcrop emerge at the southern edge, and used the nearby hearth when fire was needed. Later hands cut through the entrance, broke the porch connection and refilled the place with older material, turning a lived home into a layered memory before the motorway works revealed it.

Situated in a slight fold in a gently undulating landscape, with rock outcrop close to the surface at the S edge of the hollow. Archaeological testing (04E0917) by J. Roynane (2005) at Testing Area 10 of Contract 4 of the M3 motorway identified (excavations.ie 2004:1270) archaeological material that was fully excavated (E003141) in November and December 2006 by E. Lyne (2011) as Kilmainham 1A when an L-shaped area of 7000 square metres was opened. The excavated area was just SW of the multi-period complex of Kilmainham 1C. Two Neolithic structures, a Bronze Age hut-site, a prehistoric boundary and a flat cemetery, were recorded as well as an early medieval cereal-drying kiln and a long ditch that extended into Kilmainham 1C (excavations.ie 2007:1334). Structure 3 is a circular hut-site (int. diam. 7.75m N-S; 7.25m E-W) defined by 10 postholes on the perimeter that are placed c. 1.5-1.7m apart and it has a projecting entrance porch (Wth c. 1m; L c. 1.7m) at SE. It is located c. 6m NW of the site of Structure 1 and had no internal hearth, although a hearth (dims 1.19m x 1m; D 0.11m) located c. 10m to the NE might have served it. No artefacts were recovered from the postholes, but a sample of hazel charcoal from one provided a C14 date of 1436-13114 cal. BC (UBA 12099) while a sample of alder charcoal from another yielded a determination of 1426-1271 cal. BC (UBA 12102), placing the hut-site in the Middle Bronze Age (1700-1200 BC). Two pairs of postholes, together with some stakeholes form a NE-SW line towards the SE edge of the interior and it is thought that they might form an internal partition. From either end of this feature a line of multiple stakeholes extends NW, delineating a square area (dims c. 3m x 3m) at the centre of the hut-site that is open to the NW. The NE line of stakeholes post-dates an extensive layer of grey/brown silty sand that occupied much of the interior, and only five stakeholes of the 80 or so in the interior can be shown to pre-date this deposit. The deposit itself produced no artefacts, but three sherds of an early Neolithic carinated bowl were recovered from one of the stakeholes cut through it. A large irregularly-shaped pit (dims 2.6m x 2.3m; D 0.32m), with a stone-lined base that included a fragment of a saddle quern, was cut through the entrance area, destroying the original connection between the hut-site and its porch. A single sherd of a carinated bowl was recovered from the pit and a sample of alder charcoal from its base provided a C14 date of 3791-3659 cal. BC (UBA 12098). The pit must post-date the abandonment of the hut-site but it seems to contain redeposited material, perhaps from a Neolithic midden. (Lyne 2011, 18-27) See the attached plans adapted from Lyne (2011, figs 7, 10) ME017-085_1 Site plan; ME0117-085003- Hut-site; Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload: 16 March 2022

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