EMAP_Progress_Reports_2009_2.pdf - The Heritage Council

Kerry
A water-collecting pit was excavated near the centre of the base of the southwest wall of the
rectangular house. One burial was placed outside the south-western wall in a grave made
from the refuse belonging to the circular stone house. It directly overlay the end of the
water-collecting pit though was truncated - only skull remained intact - when the cashel wall
was built.
Excavation revealed three stones that may represent the remains of a possible pathway
which led uphill from the western door of the rectangular house directly towards the circular
stone house and oratory. This pathway would have necessarily pre-dated the construction of
the cashel wall. The rectangular house was also still occupied when the cashel wall was built
because another later paved pathway curved around from its western doorway passing
through a narrow entrance in the cashel wall and continuing to the western side of the island.
The cashel wall, which survived to a maximum width of 2m and up to 1m high, is still present
for about two-thirds (83m) of its original circuit, and may have enclosed almost the whole
habitable top of the island. Like the rectangular house, its walls comprised inner and outer
stone faces with a rubble and earthen core. The cashel was clearly the last work of
improvement done during the monastic occupation as it consists of an inner face only where
it passes the rectangular house.
The final occupation phase consisted of post-monastic squatter activity involving the erection
of a series of rough shelters or wind-breaks (Structures A-H on Fig. 1) on the northern,
eastern and south-eastern tips of the island as well as inside the rectangular stone house.
The shelters partly overlay the cashel walls. Sherds of late-thirteenth/fourteenth-century
glazed pottery were found associated with the evidence for the shelter inside the rectangular
stone house and indicate a possible medieval date for this phase of activity.
Burials were identified across the island with most being of indeterminate date. Some burials
appear to have pre-dated the post-monastic enclosures and shelters at the northern and
south-eastern end of the island though it is unclear if they were associated with the
monastery. One long-cist burial at the north-eastern side of the island was built against the
inner face of the cashel and post-dated it. Another burial inside the rectangular stone house
appears to post-date the use of the building as a dwelling though pre-date the post-monastic
squatter evidence.
Finds with no specific associations or in indeterminate/disturbed contexts from O’Kelly’s
excavation included a spindle-whorl, limpet-scoop, perforated disc, whet-stone, heel-stone,
seven quernstone fragments, bronze bell fragments, bronze crutch-headed pin, three bronze
pins, sheet bronze, iron sickle, iron knives, socketed cutting hook and a fragment of cloth
from a stone cist underlying the stone oratory. An early Bronze Age tanged flint arrowhead
was also recovered in excavations at the site of the terraced shrine mound in 2005.
The faunal assemblage from O’Kelly’s excavations included the remains of cattle, pig, sheep,
goat, small horse or pony and rabbit as well as the bones of cod, seal, otter, gannet,
cormorant, goose, ducks, sparrows and finches. Evidence for oats barley, wheat and rye were
recovered from deposits inside the circular stone house and oratory and indicate the
importation of cereal grains from the mainland.
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