Man-made underground passage in Raystown

An earthcut Man-made underground passage with a wooden superstructure was built in Phase 2, cutting through some of the gullies of that phase in the N habitation area. The passage was entered at E (Wth 1.3m; H 0.93m) and turned N immediately (L 5.94m) past two pairs of opposed post-holes to an expanded elbow joint (dims 2.1m E-W; 0.9m N-S) with four post-holes. At this point the passage turned W (Wth 1.44m; L 5.8m) where there were four pairs of opposed post-holes and a single post-hole set into the side of the passage at S. At the W end the passage curved N (Wth 1.28m; L 3.75m) and there was a single pair of post-holes before it entered a circular chamber (diam. of base 3.5m) that had seven post-holes around its edge, including a pair at the entrance from the passage. The floor sloped down slightly (0.2m) from the outer entrance to the chamber. The outer leg of the entrance passage was later lined in stone, which obscured the original post-holes. A cereal grain from one of its post-holes provided a C14 date of 530-650 cal. AD. (Seaver 2009, vol. 1, 41-5) See the attached plans from Seaver (2009, vol. 2): _1 Phase 2 (fig. 26) _2 plan of Man-made underground passages (fig. 62) Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload: 20 December 2021