What is recorded here

Excavation is a temporary research cut where forgotten life reappears before development erases it again. In County Louth, road works opened nearly four thousand eight hundred square metres of buried neighbourhood: ditches, huts, a kiln, an industrial place and small hearths stretched from Early Christian to Medieval time. Flint, iron slag, burnt bone and a broken quernstone filled the pits like crumbs from long meals. One hearth kept a blue bead, tiny and bright, as if someone had set a spark of beauty beside the fire and then gone away.

Discovered prior to road construction (Excavation Licence No. 00E0477). An area measuring c. 4800sq m was excavated (Chapple 2002, 210-12). A variety of different structures and phases of activity were identified. Two large boundary ditches (LH021-065001- and LH021-065002-), an industrial site (LH021-065003-), a hut site (LH021-065004-) and a kiln (LH021-065005-) date to the Early Christian period. Three structures (LH021-065006-, LH021-065007- and LH021-065008-) date to the Medieval period. This portion of excavated ditch (LH021-065002-) (L 39m; average Wth 3m; D 1.5m) was roughly L-shaped and lay c. 21m to S of a possible outer ditch (LH021-065001-). An eastern terminal was identified but on western limit of excavation the ditch continued into the section. Over 70 different fills were noted. There were numerous finds including flints, iron slag, burnt bone and pieces of a shattered rotary quernstone. Also found was a small stone-lined hearth containing a blue glass bead. (Chapple 2002, 211) Compiled by: Claire Breen Date of upload: 20 July 2012

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