Pit in Portan (dunboyne By.)

Archaeological monitoring (15E0577) by P. Duffy, D. Bayle and J. Whitaker of topsoil stripping over a large area (c. 92 ha.) conducted intermittently between Dec. 2015 and October 2018 uncovered 37 locations of potential archaeological importance (excavations.ie 2016:051). Each of these was further investigated by the same archaeologists under different licences. At Site 26 a single isolated pit (diam. 0.32-0.42m; D 0.12m) was excavated (16E0368) by D. Bayley (excavatioins.ie 2016:553). It had three fills with occasional to frequent charcoal inclusions, and there was some undiagnostic burnt bone in the bottom two layers. The basal layer of reddish-brown clay with charcoal was beneath a dark brown clay and a brown to black silty clay that had some stones. Ash, cherry, alder and fruitwood was amongst the charcoal, and a piece of alder charcoal yielded a C14 date of 2454-2203 cal. BC (FTMC-HR36-23), placing it in the Early Bronze Age. (Duffy et. al. 2021, 13) Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload: 26 April, 2023 Duffy, P., Fairhead, S. & F. Fleeshouven 2021 Final Excavation Report for Sites 3-37, Clonee, Portan, Gunnocks, Co. Meath. Multiple licences, Unpublished report, Irish Archaeological Consultancy