At Ballynabarny in County Wicklow, a stretch of ground earmarked for road-building yielded almost nothing: two stray pieces of natural flint, recovered from a single field, with no clear sign that human hands had ever shaped or placed them there.

The finds, such as they were, came to light in October 2001, when archaeologists tested five fields within the southern part of the land-take for the N11 Newtownmountkennedy to Ballynabarny dual carriageway scheme. The work was carried out as a precaution ahead of construction, a routine but necessary step given that road schemes in Ireland frequently cut through ground that has never been systematically examined. Field 1, lying to the south of the junction between the existing N11 and the Wicklow road, produced only those two flint pieces, described as natural rather than worked, meaning there is no firm evidence they were brought or modified by people at all. The remaining fields in the tested area are not recorded as having produced anything more substantial. The site carries the designation of a habitation site, a category that covers a broad range of evidence for past occupation, but in this case the material basis for that label is notably thin.