EMAP_Progress_Reports_2009_2.pdf - The Heritage Council

Kerry
Cloghermore, Co. Kerry
Cave
Grid Ref: Q906128 (09060/11280)
SMR No: KE030-068; KE030-069
Excavation Licence: 99E0431
Excavation Duration/year: August 1999; April-June 2000
Site Director: M. Connolly (Kerry County Museum); F. Coyne (Aegis Archaeology
Ltd.)
A cave and D-shaped enclosure at Cloghermore revealed considerable early medieval
funerary and burial activity associated with an eighth/ninth-century pagan Irish community
and a late-ninth/tenth-century Scandinavian family. The excavations were undertaken in 1999
and 2000 following the discovery of human remains inside the cave. The main excavated
areas comprised trenches across the enclosure and around the cave entrance shaft as well as
a series of excavated areas within the entrance passages and the two internal chambers
(Figs. 156; 157).
The cave consists of 375m of fossil passages situated under a large limestone reef (located
now at 51m OD). The main entrance is through a narrow cleft on the northern side of the
reef with two recorded chambers to the south- ‘Two-Star Temple’ and the ‘Graveyard’. A
second unrecorded entrance was discovered at the southern terminal inside a D-shaped
enclosure on the south-facing side of the reef. This enclosure consisted of a broad bank
scarped out of the side of the reef which measured 16.8m by 28m internally, and 34.8m by
44.80m externally.
There was no clear stratigraphy within the cave which precluded the possibility of a detailed
sequence of deposition within the cave. Both the ‘Graveyard’ and the ‘Two-Star Temple’
chambers appear to have originally contained little or no sediment. A clay deposit was
introduced into the cave (possibly in the second phase of activity) though minimal amounts
were found in the deepest chamber (‘Two-Star Temple’) or the gallery connecting it to the
‘Graveyard’. Two phases of burial were advanced though there was evidently a short span of
time between both with the possibility existing that the site was in continuous use in the
period.
The first phase of burial activity may date to the fifth century, but centres on the eighth/ninth
centuries and was associated with the use of the use of the ‘Two-Star Temple’ and
‘Graveyard’ chambers as ossuaries of a small pagan Irish population. The phase was
characterised by the disarticulation and deposition of selected de-fleshed skeletal remains
without artefacts upon the floor of the cave. The skeletal material were left exposed on the
cave floor and spanned the early-fifth century to the ninth century (see below), and the
earliest date stands alone and could possibly represent a very early usage of the cave. The
early burials from the ‘Graveyard’ were subsequently mixed together with the later burials
from the ‘Two-Star Temple’ and produced radiocarbon dates from the seventh/ninth century.
The second phase centres on the later-ninth/mid-tenth century, and is indicative of the use of
the cave by a small pagan community- possibly Scandinavian- consisting of at least four
adults and three sub-adults with grave-goods as well as a possible cremation burial. It is
characterised by the internment of complete bodies with artefacts and complex burial rites
involving the cremation of animals and the internment of parts of horses. The clay appears to
have been introduced in the second phase either to cover the burials inserted in the final
phase of activity or to cover the earlier burials and provide a clean surface; all of the artefacts
and most of the skeletal material were recovered from this deposit. It appears that the
burials were disturbed or possibly intentionally desecrated at a later date, perhaps by the
native population.
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