EMAP_Progress_Reports_2009_2.pdf - The Heritage Council

Cork
Raheens I, Co. Cork
Early Medieval Settlement Enclosure
Grid Ref: W76566358 (176569/063589)
SMR No: CO087-047
Excavation Licence: N/A
Excavation Duration/year: June - November 1989
Site Director: A.M. Lennon (University College Cork)
Two enclosures, 400m apart, were excavated in Raheens townland in advance of an
industrial development. Raheens I was recorded on the First Edition of the Ordnance Survey
6” maps, although it appears to have been subsequently levelled in the nineteenth century.
The excavation revealed two concentric ditches enclosing two round houses, a scatter of
postholes and stakeholes and one large pit as well as some peripheral activity to the west of
the site. Phasing of the site was impossible as extensive modern ploughing activity had
removed all occupation debris and truncated almost all the features (Fig. 79).
An isolated stone-lined pit and a scatter of post and stakeholes and other pits were excavated
to the west of the enclosure. One line of stakeholes appears to have functioned as a small
wind-break while a trench containing several stakeholes and two pits had another possible
structural purpose. The lack of occupational debris from these features suggests that they
were temporary structures and do not represent external habitation sites. The features also
had a close stratigraphic relationship to the enclosing ditch suggesting that they may have
been associated in some way with the construction of the enclosure ditches.
The site contained two concentric ditches, set 4.0m apart, which had diameters of 34m
internally and 45m externally. There was no direct evidence for associated banks. Two
sections through the outer ditch revealed that it was U-shaped in profile and measured up to
1.9m deep and 2.20m wide at the surface; and the sections through the inner ditch revealed
it was almost bowl-shaped in profile and measured up to 1.6m deep and 3.0m wide at the
surface. Both ditches appear to have remained open for a period of time before being finally
deliberately in-filled. One fragment of a sheep/goat horn core was found inside a fill in the
inner ditch.
A gradually curving U-shaped trench (0.50m deep and 1.80m wide at the surface) was
identified immediately inside the inner enclosing ditch along its western side. The trench was
excavated extending along the inner perimeter of the ditch for a distance of 18m and was
never no more than 1.0m from it. It was tentatively interpreted as a slot beam trench which
may have held uprights for a wooden palisade along the western side. A dump of charcoal
and heat-shattered stones containing several sherds of an unglazed possible early medieval
French ware were recovered in one of the upper fills of the trench and suggest that this
‘backfill took place in either the last stages of occupation or after the site was abandoned’.
The large cutting in the interior of the site revealed that the internal features had been
heavily truncated due to extensive modern ploughing activity. Several dug features were
identified but the lack of occupation deposits made stratigraphic associations impossible. A
square shaped pit (2m by 2m, and 0.80m deep) was excavated close to the inner ditch and
contained within its fills a considerable amount of charcoal, animal bone fragments, a
perforated hone stone and an iron knife blade. Two post-pits were situated in the western
corners of the pit and may have provided some form of superstructure for this possible
storage pit.
The principal internal features were the two round houses. House 1 and House 2 measured
5m and 6m in diameter respectively and appear to have been principally constructed using
slot-trenches and double lines of stakeholes. The entrances to House 1 and House 2 were
along the southern and south-eastern sides. No indications of a hearth or internal supports or
divisions were uncovered in either structure though these were probably destroyed by recent
ploughing activity.
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