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 mound (dims c. 15m x c. 7m) was positioned over a hollow (dims 3.5m x 1.5m; D 0.2m) filled with a layer of redeposited marl mixed with clayey sand that produced occasional burnt bone, wood and one pottery sherd. A hazelnut shell from this yielded a C14 date of 3940-3660 cal. BC (BETA 246995). This was overlain by three layers of a brown/black gritty peat with stones, ash lenses and decayed organic matter. It produced one sherd of pottery and a polished stone axehead of de-carbonated shale. The mound was sealed by a consolidating layer of dark brown/black peat with stones, and occasional ash and charcoal. A fragment of a femur from this layer produced a C14 date of 3630-3360 cal. BC (BETA 246992), and the two sherds matched. (Mossop and Mossop 2009, 29-30) 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