EMAP_Progress_Reports_2009_2.pdf - The Heritage Council

Kerry
surviving to a height of 0.90m surrounded the two huts and was used to anchor blocks of sod
for the insulation of the walls.
The primary floor level of Structure A yielded a flint flake, a corroded iron knife and a
decorated glass bead. A partially stone-lined hearth and two postholes were uncovered in the
interior of Structure B. The upper stone of a rotary quern was found lying directly on top of a
burnt deposit associated with the hearth. Other finds from Structure B included four dumps of
shells. As mentioned above, the ironworking evidence from structures D and possible
structure G may be associated with the occupants of Structures A and B during Phase 2.
Structure E consisted of a small poorly-built rectangular building (5.5m by 2.8m internally)
erected as a kind of lean-to against the inner face of the enclosure wall. Although the walls
were poorly-built, its foundations were broad and this coupled with its small plan might
indicate that it had a corbelled roof originally. The structure clearly post-dated the enclosure
wall though no other archaeological evidence was uncovered to indicate its period of
construction or use.
Phase 3 is associated with the desertion of the monastic community and the re-use of a
portion of the site mainly as a ceallúnach burial ground from the late medieval period. The
burials- roughly-built cist graves associated with deposits of quartz and sea pebbles and
occasionally re-using early cross-slabs- were located mainly within a small rectilinear
enclosure (10m by 6.4m) to the north of the oratory as well as inside this building and to its
immediate south.
The western sector of the site was divided into small plots for grazing and tillage while the
site was being re-used as a ceallúnach. Some of the structures, notably A, B and probably E,
were altered and used in more recent times probably as animal shelters. Finds from these
upper levels- modern crockery and clay pipe stems-indicate a date in the
eighteenth/nineteenth centuries.
A corn-drying kiln was excavated outside the enclosure in the southwest corner and consisted
of a tapering stone-lined roofed flue (1.75m by 0.7m and 0.6m high) leading into a stonelined
bowl, 1.2m in diameter. Evidence for firing was identified at the outer end of the flu and
may indicate the location of a hearth. The excavator was conscious that this feature could be
early medieval though advanced a post-medieval date since it was located outside the
enclosure and was possibly associated with the re-use of Structures A and B as animal
shelters.
Along with the considerable evidence for iron and possibly bronze-working, the recovery of
spindle-whorls, loom-weights, net-sinkers, polishers, hammer-stones, rubbing-stones, honestones,
quernstones and flint and chert flakes indicates a range of other domestic activities
including spinning and weaving, leather-working, cereal cultivation and fishing. Other finds
from the site included heel-stones, perforated stone discs and a possible stone lamp and pot
cover.
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