Boulder-burial, Dromteewakeen, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Burial Sites
At Dromteewakeen in County Kerry, a large flat boulder once rested across a cluster of smaller stones in a way that has puzzled archaeologists for decades.
The arrangement, a boulder-burial, is a monument type found occasionally in south-west Ireland, in which a substantial capstone is propped above a low setting of uprights, sometimes covering a burial deposit. What made the Dromteewakeen example especially tantalising, and ultimately frustrating, was that it no longer exists in its original form, leaving only the record of what was once there.
Before its destruction, the capstone measured roughly 1.6 metres by 1.35 metres and sat above four or more smaller stones. It stood approximately 24 metres to the north-east of a stone row, a prehistoric alignment of standing stones that survives nearby, which suggests the two monuments may have belonged to the same landscape of ceremonial or funerary activity. Seán Ó Nualláin documented the feature in 1988, and the following year John Sheehan excavated an area of around 18 square metres centred on the original location. The excavation produced no finds whatsoever, and nothing survived beneath or around the site that could confirm whether it had ever contained a burial or served any other identifiable purpose. The careful qualifier "possible boulder-burial" has remained attached to the site ever since, a small admission that Bronze Age intent does not always survive long enough for us to read it clearly.