Hearth in Derver

Located on a steep S-facing slope of the River Blackwater valley, with a WNW-ESE section of the stream c. 370m to the S. Archaeological testing (04E1060) by D. Bayley (2005) at Testing Area 9 of Contract 5 of the M3 motorway identified archaeological features that were completely excavated (E003186) by S. Rathbone in January 2007 (excavations.ie 2007:1295) as Derver 2. It consisted of two pits (dims 1.2mx 1.04m; D 0.3m: 0.85m x 0.72m; D 0.07m) that were 8m apart, each filled with dark sandy clay with occasional small stones and frequent charcoal inclusions. A small part of the base of one pit was fire-reddened and they may have been hearths, although no artefacts were recovered and no radiocarbon dates are available. (Rathbone and Ginn 2008) Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload: 3 March 2022