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 feature, Mound E (diam. c. 1.5m; H 1m), was constructed in a tree-bole or pit (D 0.55m) cut into the spread of burnt bone between mounds A and C. A flat sandstone item (diam. 65-70mm; H 19mm) with a hollow (diam. c. 30mm) on one surface was in the bottom of the pit which was sealed by seven layers of peaty clay. A sample from the basal layer yielded a C14 date of 4040-3820 cal. BC (BETA 247000), and some of the succeeding layers produced pottery sherds but others were sterile. It was sealed by the same stoney layer as mound C, but this pit might be the earliest Neolithic feature here and the deliberate deposition of the hollowed sandstone piece could be viewed as a votive or founding deposit. (Mossop and Mossop 2009, 30-31). 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