Cremation pit, Templerainy, Co. Wicklow
Co. Wicklow |
Burial Sites
A construction project intended to ease traffic around Arklow turned out to disturb something far older.
During excavations carried out as part of the Arklow bypass road scheme, archaeologist Brendán Ó Riordáin uncovered a burial pit at Templerainy containing the remains of cremated human bones. The find was catalogued as Site K, one of several pits identified in close proximity to one another in this part of County Wicklow.
What makes the site particularly compelling is its context. The adjacent burial pits, recorded nearby, yielded Beaker and Bronze Age pottery, placing this cluster of interments within a broad span of prehistoric activity. Beaker pottery, named for its distinctive vessel shape and associated with a period of significant cultural change across Atlantic Europe from roughly 2500 BCE onwards, often appears alongside burial practices of this era, suggesting these pits formed part of a deliberate funerary landscape rather than isolated events. Cremation was a common practice throughout the Bronze Age in Ireland, and finding the burnt remains of a person alongside evidence of Beaker-period activity hints at a community that returned to this ground across generations. Ó Riordáin's excavation report, published in 1999, documents the findings from what was clearly a site of considerable prehistoric significance, brought to light only because a modern road needed to be built.