Structure, Ballyquirk, Co. Kilkenny

Co. Kilkenny |

Utility Structures

Structure, Ballyquirk, Co. Kilkenny

On a hilltop in County Kilkenny that looks out towards the Blackstairs Mountains to the east and Slievenamon to the south, archaeologists found something that no longer exists in any visible form: the ghostly footprint of three small Bronze Age structures, preserved only as patterns of postholes and stakeholes pressed into the earth.

The hill sits in an area prone to waterlogging, which makes its use as a habitation or ceremonial site all the more deliberate. Nothing stands here now that the eye can follow, yet the ground held its memory for roughly three and a half thousand years.

The site was uncovered during excavations in 2007 and 2008, carried out in advance of road construction along the N9/N10 Kilcullen to Waterford scheme. What emerged were three small subcircular structures, each defined by arrangements of stakeholes and postholes, the kind of evidence left when timber uprights rot away entirely and only the compressed soil around their bases survives. Structure 1, about three metres in diameter, showed two clusters of stake-holes at its north-east and south-west points, possibly positioned to carry roof supports, with a further group of four stake-holes to the north that may mark a small entrance or porch. Structure 2, slightly larger at four metres across, was formed by seven post-holes arranged in a semicircular plan open to the south-west. Because two of its post-holes cut through stake-holes belonging to Structure 1, it is understood to have been built later, a second phase of activity on the same spot. Hazel charcoal recovered from one of Structure 2's post-holes was radiocarbon dated to between 1690 and 1515 cal BC, placing construction firmly in the Middle Bronze Age. More striking still, a shallow pit inside Structure 2 contained cremated human bone, a detail that shifts the interpretation of the whole complex away from simple domestic use and towards something more ceremonial. Structure 3, about three and a half metres in diameter and located to the south-east, followed the same subcircular pattern of stake-holes, with one stake-hole cutting through an even earlier pit beneath it, suggesting the hilltop had a longer history of use than the Bronze Age remains alone might indicate.

The remains are no longer accessible as a visible feature; the road scheme that prompted their discovery has since reshaped the landscape. What survives is the excavation record, which captured a rare glimpse of a small Bronze Age community, or gathering place, choosing a waterlogged hilltop with wide open views for purposes that mixed the practical with what appears to have been the deeply ritual.

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Pete F
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