Burnt spread, Carrigaline Middle, Co. Cork
Co. Cork |
Ritual/Ceremonial
In a field in Carrigaline Middle, County Cork, a small oblong patch of darkened earth turned up during routine archaeological test-trenching in 2001.
The feature measured roughly 2.1 metres east to west and less than half a metre north to south, its soil stained with charcoal. That is almost everything that is known about it.
The trenching was carried out ahead of a proposed housing development, a standard precautionary process in Irish planning that occasionally surfaces the unexpected. What produced this particular concentration of charcoal-enriched soil, and when, remains unrecorded. A burnt spread of this kind can indicate anything from a prehistoric cooking site to the remnants of land clearance or a collapsed structure, and without further excavation the evidence simply sits on the record, unresolved. The work was documented by Sherlock in 2002, and the feature noted without interpretation.