EMAP_Progress_Reports_2009_2.pdf - The Heritage Council

Clare
beside the central hearth and a slate trial-piece was found in the habitation deposit covering
the entrance passage of the building. A large burnt area marked by a thick layer of charcoalflecked
soil was identified outside the northeast corner of the building and seems to have
been contemporary with it.
A period of abandonment between the end of the primary period of activity and the
beginning of the construction of the secondary feature was suggested by the presence of a
turf layer that had formed over the whole surface of the original fort. The enormous
secondary bank and ditch was next erected and involved the dumping of material inside and
on the inner slopes of the primary bank to raise the width and height of the bank to its
present form. The excavator suggested that the intention of the builders was not to create a
larger enclosure but to build a motte-like structure or flat-topped mound which would have
been the result had they continued to deposit gravel from the ditch outside and tip it all
around the inner bank slopes in the interior. The lack of any archaeological evidence
associated with this secondary structure also supports the hypothesis that this feature was
never completed.
There were few finds from the site belonging to the original enclosure; a fact partly explained
by the inability of the excavators to investigate close to the inner faces of the bank on the
sheltered west and south-west sides as well as the enormous size of the secondary structure
engulfing it. The few finds consisted of a stone trial piece, five bronze pins, a tanged stud,
two hone-stones, some corroded iron objects and nails, two sherds of brownish-grey pottery
and two Hiberno-Scandinavian silver coins dated to A.D. 1035 and 1070 respectively.
Although no actual furnace was identified, evidence for small-scale ironworking on the site
took the form of six small hemispherical lumps of slag.
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