House — Bronze Age in Mitchelstown

This is one of three houses (CO010-066----, CO010-067----) which were excavated in 2004 in advance of the construction of the Mitchelstown inner relief road. This subcircular house (9.7m N-S; 8.5m E-W) comprised a shallow slot-trench (Wth c. 0.3m; D c. 0.15m) with an internal ring of nine post-holes. According to the excavator, an internal slot-trench, that extended N-S, with post-holes at each end, seemed to represent an internal dividing wall, creating a space 8.5m N-S by 2m E-W, inside the E-facing entrance (Wth c. 1m) (Cotter 2007, 65). A small patch of burnt clay in the larger W compartment probably marked the location of the hearth. This house was located c. 1m to the N of one of the other houses (CO010-066----) and truncated the other (CO010-067----). According to Cotter (ibid.), a dense cluster of stake-holes, occurring in the area where the three houses overlapped, may have represented earlier transitory activity. Radiocarbon dates of 1493-1475 cal. BC and 1462-1305 cal. BC (2-sigma) were returned from charcoal recovered from a fill in the slot-trench for the internal partition wall of this house (Cotter 2008, 14). (Cotter 2007, 65; 2008) The above description is derived from 'The Archaeological Inventory of County Cork. Volume 5' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 2009). Date of upload: 22 December 2009