At Ballinaclogh in County Wicklow, a routine upgrade of the N11 between Newtownmountkennedy and Ballynabarney brought archaeologists to a patch of ground that turned out to have been home to people long before tarmac was a consideration.

In 2003, excavations carried out under licence during that road scheme revealed a series of pits and postholes cut into the soil. Postholes are exactly what they sound like, the narrow sockets left behind when upright timber posts rot or are removed, and in archaeology they are one of the primary clues that a structure once stood in a given spot. Arranged in patterns, they can suggest the outline of a building, a fence line, or a larger enclosure. The pits found alongside them are similarly telling, used in the past for storage, cooking, or disposal of waste. Together, the features at Ballinaclogh point to a place where people lived and worked, though the notes available do not specify the period or the precise nature of the settlement. The findings were published by Lynch in 2005 and again cited in 2007.