EMAP_Progress_Reports_2009_2.pdf - The Heritage Council

Antrim
Lissue, Co. Antrim
Early Medieval Settlement Enclosure.
Grid Ref: J22786325 (32278/36325)
SMR No. ANT 067:013
Excavation Licence: N/A
Excavation Duration/Year: June – August 1946.
Site Director: G. Bersu (Royal Irish Academy).
The site consists of a univallate enclosure, approximately 60m in diameter, built on the
southern slope of a drumlin. A research excavation was undertaken combining the Royal Irish
Academy; Queen’s University, Belfast; the Belfast Municipal Museum; and the Inspectorate of
Ancient Monuments.
Excavation revealed the presence of an earlier, smaller enclosure ditch (Fig. 31). Finds from
the fill of this earlier ditch included animal bones and pieces of worked wood, along with
sherds of souterrain ware, which suggest that this ditch was deliberately back-filled during
the early medieval period, when the enclosure expanded to its present size.
A large number of postholes were uncovered in the interior of the enclosure. These were
interpreted by the excavator as forming concentric circles, and, based on previous
excavations in the Isle of Man, the excavator suggested that these represented a circular
structure, approximately 40m in diameter, which would have covered the entire interior of
the enclosure. No other such structure has been identified in an Irish context, and it is
possible that such an interpretation is erroneous.
Finds from the site included a slate ‘trial-piece’ which has examples of interlaced design; a
bronze ring-pin; and two glass beads. There were also vast amounts of souterrain ware – the
sherds from the earlier ditch tended to be undecorated, whereas those from the later
enclosure had ‘cable-ornamentation’, presumably formed by pinching the clay between finger
and thumb. The water-logged conditions in the ditch of the later enclosure preserved wooden
artefacts (including most of an oaken churn, and a couple of lathe-turned vessels – all of
which were typologically dated to around the start of the ninth century), and the fragments
of two (or three) leather shoes.
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