EMAP_Progress_Reports_2009_2.pdf - The Heritage Council

Dublin
a continuation of Ditch C and it also probably had a related stone-revetted bank. The ratio of the
three main animal domesticates was similar to Phase II.
2. Early Medieval Unenclosed Souterrain Complex
The Phase III outer enclosure enclosed two souterrains while a further five were located further
downhill from the hilltop enclosure. The enclosed souterrains may relate to this phase or, alternatively
and more likely, they all belong to Phase IV.
Phase IV consisted of occupation at Rosepark from the ninth century until the arrival of the Anglo-
Normans. The souterrains possibly represent a movement from enclosed to open settlement at this
point and it appears that the hilltop enclosure was abandoned by the eighth or ninth centuries. Some
of the souterrains were used, after their abandonment, as cereal-drying kilns. Kilns nearby at Glebe
South were radiocarbon dated between the early eleventh and thirteenth centuries. It could
tentatively be suggested that the souterrains at Rosepark were utilised between the ninth and tenth
centuries before their abandonment. Some were thereafter reused as cereal-drying kilns
contemporary with cereal processing at Glebe South.
Fig. 123: Phase I at Rosepark, Co. Dublin (after Carroll 2008, 24).
232