Habitation site, Knockalton, Co. Tipperary

Co. Tipperary |

Settlement Sites

Habitation site, Knockalton, Co. Tipperary

Beneath what is now a stretch of road outside Nenagh, the faint outline of a prehistoric dwelling survived long enough to be recorded before the bypass swallowed it.

The site at Knockalton is not the kind of place you can visit, photograph, or stand in quiet contemplation of; it exists now only in the archaeological record, captured in the brief window between a contractor's testing trenches and the laying of a modern road.

The site came to light during monitoring work carried out in advance of the Nenagh Bypass, when excavators uncovered a roughly circular arrangement of post-holes and stake-holes, the traces left by upright timbers that once formed, or contributed to, some kind of structure. The overall footprint measured approximately 10.5 metres north to south and 12 metres across. The post-holes did not resolve into a clearly legible building plan, which is not unusual for sites of this age; the evidence is fragmentary, and what remains are impressions in the soil rather than walls or foundations. Several pits were found in association with the post-holes. The largest of these, measuring 1.5 metres by 2 metres and nearly half a metre deep, lay immediately to the north of the post-hole cluster and was filled with soil flecked with charcoal and burnt clay, suggesting burning activity nearby. Among the finds recovered were sherds of prehistoric pottery, pieces of charcoal, and flakes of chert, a flint-like stone that people worked into tools throughout the prehistoric period. Together, these fragments point to a settlement of some kind, domestic in character, though its precise date and function remain uncertain.

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Pete F
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