What is recorded here

Urns buried in Currane mark one of the oldest known cremation traditions in Europe. People burned their dead and placed the ashes in pottery jars, sometimes burying those jars under mound or stone. The practice spread across Britain and parts of continental Europe during the Bronze Age. It shows that death, memory and craft were already entangled thousands of years ago.

On top of a Currane Hill. Mahr (1937, 362) records an urn 'found in the centre of three concentric stone circles, rising in height from the inner to the outer' each being covered with 'long flags extending round the uprights of each respective circle'. Covered by cairn (CO109-039002-); site destroyed in 1840. Doody (1986) describes the urn as an 'Enlarged Food Vessel'. The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Cork. Volume 1: West Cork' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1992). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload/revision: 14 January 2009

Bronze Age urn burial; associated with a ritual or funerary stone circle complex. The concentric circles suggest ceremonial significance and provide insight into prehistoric burial practices in the region.

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