EMAP_Progress_Reports_2009_2.pdf - The Heritage Council

Londonderry
Corrstown, Co. Londonderry
Early Medieval Settlement Enclosure.
Grid Ref: C86093914 (28609/43914)
SMR No: LDY 003:026?
Excavation Licence: AE/02/100
Excavation Duration/Year: 2002; 2003.
Site Director: M. Conway & A. Gahan (Archaeological Consultancy Services).
The site was indicated in SMRNI as an ‘enclosure’ which was set in an area of level pasture.
The area was fully excavated prior to the construction of a private housing estate. This
excavation revealed two main phases of non-continuous occupation. The discovery of 76
structures site showed that the site had been a major settlement during the Bronze Age, but
there was also occupation through the early medieval period (Fig. 200).
Half an enclosure (approximately 25m in diameter), defined by a U-shaped ditch (2.5m wide
and 1.09m deep) was uncovered during top-soil stripping. The ditch cut through earlier
occupation layers, and Bronze Age pottery and flint tools were found in the lower fill. Internal
structural features had been severely truncated by later agricultural activities, but the
remains of a possible rectangular house, represented by a linear gully and a line of postholes,
were discovered near the centre of the enclosure. This house was most likely associated with
a dry-stone wall built souterrain. This was radiocarbon dated to a rather early date of midsixth/mid-seventh
century (see below). A kiln, dated to the same time as the souterrain (see
below), was also found within the enclosure.
Another structure, external to the enclosure, was indicated by two sections of wall-slot
ditches (0.3m in depth). The ditches appear to have been too inadequate to support walls,
and the absence of any associated postholes suggests that this ‘structure’ was not roofed
either; there was no evidence for a formal entrance. Two alternative possibilities have been
suggested: it was a possible corral / animal pen; or it represents a system of drains that
defined an area which could have been used as an open-air threshing floor. A quantity of
charred cereal grains (mostly oats, but also some barley as well as remains of wild radish)
was retrieved from the fill of one of the ditch sections of this ‘structure’ and was radiocarbon
dated to the ninth/tenth century.
The only early medieval find recovered from these structures was an iron knife found in the
souterrain.
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