What is recorded here

On a bare limestone plateau above Kilcorney valley, a single upright flagstone still marks the wall of a house nobody has named. Inside its thin foundation, smaller stones packed the ground and a hollow waited for a timber frame that rotted away centuries before written memory. People may have stood there in early Bronze Age daylight, shaping chert flakes and sharing animal bone beside a nearby cairn, while wind stripped the valley clean. The house has lost its roof, its doors and its people, but its stone edge remains sharp enough to suggest a room where ordinary life once happened.

The following report of the excavation undertaken at this monument has been published by Grant (2012): 'This was a small-scale exploratory excavation undertaken for research purposes. The remains of a stone structure lie adjacent to a cairn and within an enclosure. The enclosure is located on the limestone plateau south of Kilcorney valley on the Burren in Co. Clare, and is part of a wider settlement area being investigated as part of the Kilcorney Archaeological Project (Grant 2010). The enclosure is currently undated but has features comparable to prehistoric settlement enclosures found elsewhere on the Burren (Jones 2004). The stone structure was identified as the remains of a possible house site relating to use of the enclosure. The excavation in 2009 had three main aims. The first was to identify and record the structural components of the feature, the second was to retrieve evidence of a date for the structure, and the third was to assess a possible relationship to prehistoric activity identified during excavation by the writer at the adjacent cairn (Excavations 2003, AD11, 02E1711 ext.) [see CL009-021020-]. A cutting of 1m square was excavated on the interior of the stone feature. The stone feature consisted of an upright flagstone set on its long edge and formed the exterior face of the feature. On the interior were a series of smaller packing stones and a possible posthole. A preliminary interpretation is that this is a stone foundation feature that probably supported a timber superstructure. The small-scale nature of the excavation did not allow for a classification of the built structure. Material evidence was recovered in the form of a small number of lithics and animal bone. The lithics consist mainly of chert pieces, including debitage. Identifiable pieces, including a worked flake and scrapers, are consistent with Early Bronze Age bi-polar technology (M. O’Hare, pers. comm.). Early Bronze Age lithics (M. O’Hare, pers. comm.) were also recovered during excavation of the adjacent cairn in 2003, indicating a probable link between these two areas of activity.' Compiled by: Paul Walsh Date of upload: 7 June 2014

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