Bronze Age finds stun digs director
Submitted by PaulM on Saturday, 23 August 2003 Page Views: 584
Neolithic and Bronze AgeThe amount of material recovered at a Bronze Age archaeological dig in Mid-Ulster was today described as "phenomenal" by the man leading the recovery project.As bulldozers prepare the ground for the new £1.9m Mid-Ulster Sport Academy at the Loughry Estate, Cookstown, a team of archaeologists are using more modest shovels to delve deep into the area's past on the edge of the site.
Galway man Robert Chapple, site director of excavations for Northern Archaeological Consultancy, is stunned at the find.
"The fact we've got 2,500 finds from a prehistoric landscape is incredible. I have been in archaeology for going on 15 years and I've never come across a site that has produced so much material. It's phenomenal," he said.
Two sites are being investigated and Mr Chapple is hoping one of these - to the north - could turn out to show evidence of a Bronze Age (2000-1500BC) house.
The more southerly site is giving an amazing insight into the burial customs of our ancestors.
Cookstown District Council - which is overseeing the scheme - has initiated a 'modest redesign' of the sports complex scheme as a result of the finds.
The majority of the artefacts found in the latest dig were uncovered on the more southerly of the two drumlins being investigated and they could have been overlooked.
Mr Chapple said: "When a stone was knocked out of place, underneath it there was a layer of black material. It was found purely by accident. It then only dawned on us how massive this site was."
Under what appeared to be the natural subsoil was actually a layer of charcoal-like material rich with flint and bone.
"The period we are talking about here is the Bronze Age, between 2000BC and 1500BC.
"Throughout the Bronze Age they had different burial rites - three of them recorded within a couple of hundred yards of each other here."
Mr Chapple said the three in the Loughry area are: the megalithic tomb, cist burial - stone lined coffin, and a barrow.
The barrow which is being part-excavated at Loughry is a large circular ditch 4m wide, one-and-a-half metres deep
"Barrows, when we find them, are usually a lot smaller, about 10-12m in diameter," said Mr Chapple.
"This is at the very large end of the scale. In my experience it's almost unique. In terms of the artefacts that come out of it, it's incredible.
"We have three of the major types of Bronze Age burial all happening within a couple of hundred yards of each other which shows this is part of a vibrant Bronze Age culture."
Source The Belfast Telegraph 23 August 2003
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