What is recorded here

Two oak fragments lie buried beneath living peat in County Offaly, one a neat plank and the other a small off-cut. They match wood at nearby sites dated to the Early Medieval period, suggesting a forgotten building or boundary marker rather than random debris. The peat kept them alive while human memory faded, turning an ordinary carpentry job into a quiet puzzle about whose hands shaped the wood and whose floor or fence it once supported.

Two pieces of wood (Wth 0.38m; D 0.14m) in the drain face. One piece consists of a radially split oak plank (Wth 0.2; D 0.025m). The second piece (Wth 0.045; D 0.015m) is possibly an off-cut from a plank. The site is situated in poorly humified Eriophorum and Sphagnum peat with fibrous roots and lies immediately below a horizon of less well-humified material. Its stratigraphic position and composition is comparable to that of SMR OF015-200----, 9.9m to the SE, and to an outlying plank at SMR OF015-260----, 35m to the W, both of which date to the Early Medieval period. The three sites may be related. SMR OF015-199---- may also be related to SMR OF015-198----, c. 60m to the NW, which contains woodchips which are similarly orientated to the elements in this site. Recorded by the Irish Archaeological Wetland Unit (University College, Dublin) in 1996. The evidence is not sufficient to warrant its acceptance as the remains of an archaeological monument. The original survey description was compiled by the Irish Archaeological Wetland Unit (University College, Dublin). Assessed and revised by: Caimin O'Brien, Paul Walsh Date of upload: 23 May 2011

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