EMAP_Progress_Reports_2009_2.pdf - The Heritage Council

Down
Duneight, Co. Down
Early Medieval Raised Enclosure.
Grid Ref: J27776078 (32777/36078)
SMR No: DOW 014:028
Excavation Licence: N/A
Excavation Duration/Year: September 1961
Site Director: D.M Waterman (for the Archaeological Survey of Northern Ireland).
The site, a motte-and-bailey castle, was to be partially destroyed during farm improvements. During
excavation it became apparent that the site had been re-used through different archaeological
periods. A Bronze Age burial was uncovered on the ridge, and the site was turned into an enclosure
during the early medieval period, before being re-modelled by the Anglo-Normans.
Excavations in the Anglo-Norman bailey revealed an earlier enclosure (60m by 39m) within a bank
(2.1m-2.4m high, and up to 6.6m wide), with some evidence for a further external ditch to the east
(Fig. 94). Three structures were uncovered in the interior, although only one (Building A) was fully
excavated (Fig. 95). This building was of dry-stone construction and would appear to have been subrectangular
in shape. As with the other two structures, souterrain ware was found in association with
this building.
The bottom of the inner ditch was waterlogged and produced a layer of peat, 0.6m thick, which
contained animal bones and pieces of wood. The occupation layer in the ditch contained a few sherds
of souterrain ware, and more burnt and un-burnt animal bone. The shallower outer ditch also
produced numerous sherds of souterrain ware, along with pieces of a clay crucible and lumps of iron
slag. A series of palisade trenches around the entranceway, and also along the river front, were also
excavated, from which souterrain ware and fragments of a jet bracelet were recovered.
Fig. 94: Excavations at Duneight, Co. Down (after Waterman 1963, facing 74).
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