Burial in Rockbarton (smallcounty By.)

Discovered during the summer of 1948 when workmen were stripping a low cliff or rock face, preparatory to blasting for road metal. The remains were excavated by Hunt (1967) who uncovered a single burial in the top of a pile of earth banked up against the entrance of a small chamber formed by an inclined slab-like boulder leaning against the rock face. This chamber (c. 1.83m L, 1.37m W at S narrowing to c. 0.96m at N and 1.9m H) had been used as a place of burial for a number of inhumations. The single burial consisted of a crouched inhumation in a pit associated with a fragment of a stone axehead and a decorated Neolithic vessel. The burial was in a secondary position to a mixed-up group of other burials with grave-goods including sherds of plain Western Neolithic pottery, two decorated Neolithic pots, two Beakers and fragments of two pins. The burials clearly represent a long period of deposition from the earlier Neolithic to the Early Bronze Age. The vessel accompanying the single burial has been compared with that found at Rath, Co. Wicklow (Brindley and Lanting 1989-90, 3). Compiled by: Paul Walsh Date of upload: 23 September 2013