What is recorded here

Eight burials crowded into a narrow strip of sand and gravel near Moone, including a woman laid with boar tusks and flints and an infant marked by a single stone. The road works stripped the topsoil, exposing what the grass had hidden since the Neolithic. They died close together, perhaps related, perhaps strangers pulled to the same rising ground. Their vessels and weapons still point toward the people who placed them there.

Discovered during monitoring of topsoil-stripping in advance of construction of the N9 Moone–Timolin– Ballitore road, close to the summit of an extensive grass-covered sand and gravel deposit, and archaeologically excavated (Excavation Licence No. 00E0193: Ó Ríordáin 2000 (No. 506) in http://www.excavations.ie [Accessed 15 January 2013]). Within an immediate rectangular area (c. 10m N-S; c. 5m E-W) of a cist burial (KD036-051----) a further seven pit burials were uncovered. Recorded as features F2 to F7, they comprised the following: F2 was a much-eroded pit with some long bones and some human teeth. F3 held a crouched skeleton aligned N-S; elements of the skeleton were missing, including hand, feet and pelvis bones, and part of the skull. F4a was a small circular pit containing the remains of an infant; a marker stone was sited on the pit. F4b was a large oval pit that held the crouched skeleton of a female, orientated NW-SE; two boar tusks, four flints and a small fragment of metal were also found with the burial. F5 held a crouched skeleton aligned E-W, with the head to the E; it was accompanied by a bowl food vessel located close to the pelvis. One small pit, F6, containing a cremation and flint, lay close to the cist grave. F7 held a crouched skeleton aligned N-S, with the head to the north; a flint arrowhead lay on the E side of the skull, and a bowl food vessel, in a poor state of preservation, was found close to the feet. Compiled by: Gearóid Conroy Date of upload: 15 January 2013

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