What is recorded here

Half a mile north of the town, two stone-lined pits still hold the heat of four thousand years. They are a fulacht fia, ancient cooking troughs where water was boiled with heated rocks to prepare food or cleanse the body. The larger pit is circular and the smaller is rectangular, both cut into the ground and packed with burnt sandstone. A mound of broken rock lies above them, perhaps dumped after the last use or built to mark the place. The charcoal inside dates to 2120-1890 BC, meaning people cooked here before the Bronze Age spearhead was lost nearby. What they made is gone, but the pits remain, waiting for rain and remembering fire.

Archaeological monitoring (03E0666) by K. Campbell of an area of about 25 hectares (c. 60 acres) in the N borrowing area of a mining development identified seven principal areas of archaeological potential that were set aside for further investigation (excavations.ie 2003:1448). Site 6 consisted of a mound of broken and burn stone (dims 13.75m E-W; 9.25m E-W; T 0.03-0.2m), which was completely excavated (04E1351) by C. Murray (excavations.ie 2004:1318). The mound was overlying two troughs that were 1m apart and were cut through the old ground surface at the NW edge and the upslope side of the mound. The larger was circular (diam. c. 2.25m; D 0.3-0.35m) with traces of wood-lining at the NE edge in the form of two ghost timbers. The primary fill was a charcoal-rich organic silty clay with c. 50% burnt stone content and it was overlain by a deposit of silty clay. The smaller trough (dims 1.7m x 1.3m; D 0.34m) was 1m to the W. It had a flat base and straight edges but the S and W edges had slumped into the trough. It had a single fill of dark grey/black silty clay with c. 40% burnt sandstone inclusions. There was no evidence of a wood-ling at this trough. A single pit (dims 1.4m x 1.25m; D 0.35m) was c. 11.5m NE of the mound. No artefacts were recovered but a sample of hazel charcoal from the smaller trough provided a C14 date of 2120-1890 cal. BC (Wk – 22260). The upper surface of the mound towards its SE edge was cut by a NE-SW field drain that was itself cut by a N-S boundary drain, and furrows that were mostly aligned NW-SE cut the fill of the boundary drain. A fragment of a Middle Bronze Age socketed and looped spearhead was recovered in a disturbed deposit near this monument. The tip and the base are missing but there were lunate openings at the base and there is decoration in rows of punched dots on either side of the central rib. (Murray 2008, 13-16, 32) See the attached plan of the two troughs from Murray (2008, fig. 9) Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload: 27 March 2023 Campbell, K. 2004 Report on Archaeological Monitoring at Randalstown, Co. Meath. Licence: 03E0666. Unpublished report, Author Murray, C. 2008 Excavations at Tara mines, Randalstown, Co. Meath. Licence: 04E1351. Unpublished report, CRDS

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