Midden in An Machaire Beag (tc Fathain)

Excavation licence number 01E0839. Examination of the face of a shell midden that was visible in a field boundary revealed it to be up to 33m in length and 0.6m thick. At two points, 10m and 24.5m from the northern end, the section faces were cleaned, as was the path running along the edge of the field, and samples of shell were removed from the base of the midden. At Section 2 a flint flake was recovered in the residual portion of the midden on the pathway. At 25m and 5m to the east in the adjacent field a small test-pit revealed that the midden survived under approximately 0.6m of soil. (Excavations Bulletin 2001) Peter Woodman, Department of Archaeology, University College Cork, and Nicky Milner, University of Newcastle. Described in 2001 as 'This is probably Harte's No 1 site which he recorded as 'No 1. It is at the end of the embankment near the railway station and my attention was attended to a bed of oysters and other shells lying just above the slope of the 'Boulder clay' through which the Derry and Buncrana Railway is cut, immediately at the Inch Road Station. The greater part of No 1 has been levelled down and ??? Little of it remains. It is from 18 inches to two feet thick evidently on the edge of the original mound'. The surviving midden lies at the the eastern edge of a long narrow field and is on top of a steep bank which is approximately 3 metres in height. The boundary on the northern edge of the field is defined by a fence with a series of scrub trees on the top of the slope and along the fence. The northern edge of this slope appears to have been truncated by a quarry. The shell midden is evident in the section below the wire fence and has a ledge approximately 60cms in width in front of the section. This ledge would appear to have been created by sheep. The midden can be traced running for a length of more than 33 metres to the south from the corner created by the quarry. The section was cleaned at two points - at 10 metres (Section 1) and at 24.5 metres (Section 2). In the case of section 1, the midden was 50cms thick with a dark layer represented in the top 25cms, while at section 2, the midden was 60cms thick and cut by a stone filled pit which measured 70cms across. In cleaning the edge in front of the midden at section 2 a flint flake was recovered on the surface of what might be the remnant of the midden. A test pit in the field to the east fot he field boundary revealed that at approximately 25 metres along the midden face and 5 metres from the boundary the midden still extended although the depth was unknown. Its extent in the field is also unknown. Oysters were the dominant element in this midden. C14 dating of a sample from this midden gave date of 3380+-bp'(Woodman & Milner 2001, 9-13; Milner & Woodman 2007, 104-5, No. 3). Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien Date of upload: 17 August 2010