Mound in Clowanstown (skreen By., Skreen Ed.)

Located in a fairly level landscape at the W edge of what was probably a small lake (dims c. 1.5km NW-SE; c. 0.75m NE-SW) which is described as the ‘Logh and bog of Shrereene’ on the Down Survey (1656-8) barony map and as a ‘Marl Bed’ (max. dims c. 0.5km E-W; c 0.4km N-S) on the 1836 edition of the OS 6-inch map. The original lake was probably coterminous with Commons (Skreen by.) townland. Archaeological testing (04E0418) by J. Dempsey of Testing Area 4, Contract 2, prior to the construction of the M3 motorway identified four upstanding mounds of organic material and marl. Mound A (dims 10.05m N-S; 4.8m E-W; max. H 0.58m) was 2m ENE of Mound B (dims 6.7m x 4.7m; max. H 0.12m). Mound C (dims 4.5m x 4.1m; max. H 0.2m) was 5.6m SE of A while D (dims 1.3m x 1.05m; H 0.15m) was just 2m N of A (Dempsey 2004, 12-13). The area was fully excavated (E003064) by M. Mossop (Mossop M. and Mossop E. 2009) as Clowanstown 1 (excavations.ie 2006:1533) between September and December 2006 when it proved to be a complex area with a Mesolithic post-row structure and stone platform that had four associated fish-traps, together with four Neolithic mounds and excavated features. This low mound (dims 12.5m N-S; 10m E-W; H 0.2m) was c. 2m W of Mound A and it post-dated the early phases of A. A hearth (dims 1.1m x 1m; T 0.2m) was sealed by this crescent-shaped mound (dims 10.5m N-S; 8m E-W; H 0.2m) of three layers of black sandy peat with burnt stones that produced a concave scraper, a leaf-shaped arrowhead and polished bone fragments. A sample of hazelnut charcoal produced a C14 date of 3760-3640 cal. BC (BETA 237055). (Mossop and Mossop 2009, 26-7) See the attached plans from Dempsey (2004, fig. 5) and Mossop and Mossop (fig. 16) _1 Plan of the visible mounds; _2 Plan of the consolidation layer; Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload; 19 April 2022