Hut site in Cakestown Glebe

Located in a gently undulating landscape in the valley of the NW-SE River Blackwater, with a NW-SE section of the river c. 200m to the SW. Archaeological testing (04E0913) by J. Roynane (2005) at Testing Area 14 of Contract 4 of the M3 motorway (excavations.ie 2004:1345) identified archaeological material on the route of the N52 Kells link-road that was fully excavated (E003158) by P. Lynch (2010) in February - March 2007 as Cakestown Glebe 2 when 3325 square metres were opened. A ring-ditch, two hut-sites and a structure, together with evidence of Mesolithic habitation were recorded (excavations.ie 2007:1273). The upper levels of almost all features were cut by NE-SW post-medieval furrows. This consists of an arc of stakeholes (diam. 3.5m) S-W-N that was open to the E, three hearths and several pits or postholes. It is located c. 6m W of Structure 2. An oval hearth (dims 1.6m x 0.9m; D 0.4m) is within the arc of stakes at NW where added stakeholes are present. The hearth had an uneven base and was filled with a loose grey/black silty sand. The second hearth (dims 1.1m x 0.75m; D 0.4m) had a charcoal enriched black and red clay, and would have been located outside a putative E edge of the structure where most of the six or so postholes or pits were located but no pattern was discerned amongst them. The third hearth (dims 0.63m x 0.38m; D 0.08m) was at the NE edge of the area, but oak appears to have been the principal fuel of the larger hearths. A sample of burnt bone from the largest hearth yielded a C14 date of 993-838 cal. BC (UBA 12942). A posthole just to its W provided a C14 date of 1122-939 ca. BC (UBA 12071). The largest pit (dims 3.1m NW-SE; 1.6m NE-SW; D 0.37m) at the N edge of the area was filled with a grey/brown sandy silt and produced a small stone with hollows like cup-marks and much of the pottery of a coarse Late Bronze Age domestic variety. The rest of the pottery was derived from a single vessel that was deposited in a posthole just S of the largest hearth and this posthole also provided fragments of a clay mould for a straight-sided blade. The area was covered by a layer of charcoal enriched silty clay (dims 8.2m x 7.5m; T 0.1m) from which most of the flint, consisting mostly of flakes and blades, was recovered. (Lynch 2011, 8-12) See the attached site plan from Lynch (2011, fig. 5) and hut-site plan (fig. 6) Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload: 11 March 2022