What is recorded here

Five slab-lined cists lay flat in Park na Killa when Windele opened them in 1853, revealing only brittle fragments of bones and teeth beneath rude flagstones. The rectangular graves stretched northwest to southeast across the Cork field, preserving barely enough of their occupants to identify them as human. What remains is a quiet warning about how quickly flesh, memory and meaning dissolve into soil.

Windele (1853, 230-231) describes flat cemetery of rectangular (5 - 51/2ft x 2ft; D 12ft 18in) slab-lined cists, covered with 'rude flagstones'; long axis NW-SE; only fragments of human bones and teeth survived, in brittle condition. Five graves caused to be opened on Windele visit. Field known locally as 'Park na Killa'. The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Cork. Volume 2: East and South Cork' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1994). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload/revision: 14 January 2009

Neolithic slab-lined cist burial; dates to the Early to Middle Neolithic period. It represents a simple funerary practice associated with early farming communities in Ireland.

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