Clonca Bronze Age Cist near St Buadan's Cross

In pasture, dug into the top of a prominent rise or small low hill, which has a gently domed profile with broadly sloping sides. The location provides extensive views in all directions of the surrounding gently undulating, lowlying grassland and bog, which is ringed in the far distance by the Inishowen uplands, with the distinctive peak of Slieve Snaght visible to SW. A stream is located 150m to E, with a burnt mound (DG012-048----) located on its banks to NE. This cist was uncovered during farm reclamation works in 2019. The discovery was notified to the National Monuments Service (NMS) and the National Museum of Ireland (NMI), and the NMI carried out a rescue excavation (licence: 20E157) at the cist in 2020. The cist consisted of a rectangular box-like cavity (L c. 0.75m N–S; Wth c. 0.45m; D 0.45-0.5m) with walls neatly constructed of upright slabs, roofed with a single, large roughly rectangular-shaped capstone (L 1.4m N-S; Wth 1.03m; T 0.12m) which generously oversailed the walls. The cist was oriented NNE-SSW (for convenience it is described below as if oriented N−S). The narrow N and S sides of the cist were each formed by a single upright slab. The E side wall had a single large upright forming the lower course of the wall, above which were two courses of drystone walling, with the interstices filled with small stones, and a small upright slab stood at the NE angle of the E wall. The W side wall was constructed with a large upright slab, with a smaller upright at the N end. A number of small, horizontally-laid stones were ranged along the top of the W wall, levelling it up to take the capstone. The floor was paved with a single large slab, with small stones packed into gaps between the edges of the floor slab and the side walls. The cist was filled to between a third and half of its depth with soil which was densely mixed with fragmentary cremated bones. At the base of the soil and bone layer, there was a concentrated deposit (diam. c. 0.25m; D 0.02m ) of highly fragmentary cremated bone and grey-white ashy material which lay directly on the floor slab, just to S of centre. A small deposit of burnt bone lay underneath the floor slab. A flint flake was found towards the base of the fill, in the SE end of the cist. The cist was constructed within a flat-based oval pit (1.6m NNE-SSW; 1.25m WNW-ESE; D c. 0.7m). Post-excavation analysis is in progress, and this record will be updated with the results in due course. Attached images: DG012-047----_01.JPG Capstone of the cist in situ DG012-047----_02.JPG Cist during excavation, showing a concentrated deposit of cremated bone lying on the floor slab DG012-047----_03.JPG Cist following excavation of its contents DG012-047----_04.JPG Oval pit which contained the cist Compiled by: Jane O'Shaughnessy Date of upload: 26 October 2021