What is recorded here

Twenty metres of timber rose on the Newgrange ridge around 2500 BC, framing cremated remains and Beaker clay before rot and fire released it back to the soil. The circle sat thirty-five metres from the tomb kerb, large enough to gather hundreds or exclude everyone depending which gate you entered. Its wooden walls have vanished, but the post-holes still mark the distance humans once kept between the living and the dead.

Located on the E-W ridge of Newgrange and c. 35m W of the kerb of the central passage tomb (ME019-045----). Archaeological excavation (E000261) was conducted during 1984 on the E side of a NNW-SSE field bank in advance of the construction of a temporary roadway. It uncovered the E arc of a timber circle consisting of large inner post-holes (Chord 9m N-S) and an outer ring of usually smaller post-holes (Chord 16m N-S). The larger pits showed signs of burning and had been re-used as post-holes, while the smaller pits contained debris and almost all had post-pits. All the features produce either sherds of Beaker ware, flint debris or cremated remains. A sample (GRN-12828) from one of the larger pits of phase 1 produced a C14 date of 4000 +- 30 bp, which calibrates to 2577-2468 cal. BC while another sample (GRN-12829) from one of the smaller outer pits produced fragments of a Beaker vessel, four flints, a fragment of a stone bowl, and a C14 determination of 3930 +- 35 bp (2562-2299 cal. BC) (Smyth 2009, App. 4, 126). Most of the timber circle (original ext. diam. c. 20-30m) remains unexcavated under a hut or W of the field bank. (Sweetman 1987) Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload: 8 December 2017 Amended: 27 May 2021

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