Ring-ditch, Milltown, Co. Wicklow

Co. Wicklow |

Ritual/Ceremonial

Ring-ditch, Milltown, Co. Wicklow

In a field at Milltown North in Co. Wicklow, excavators uncovered something that had been invisible for millennia: two circular ditches cut into the earth, placed close together as if in deliberate conversation with one another.

Ring-ditches of this kind are the ghostly traces of prehistoric funerary monuments, the enclosing trenches that once defined a sacred or burial space, sometimes beneath a now-vanished mound. They leave no upstanding remains, no masonry, nothing to catch the eye of a passing walker. Their presence is known only because a licensed excavation, carried out under licence number 02E0703, finally brought them to light.

The larger of the two measured roughly 10.5 metres in external diameter, its boundary formed by a U-shaped ditch about 1.25 metres wide. Inside that enclosure, archaeologists found two urn burials, the cremated remains of individuals placed in ceramic vessels, along with what appears to have been a further cremation pit. About eight metres to the north-east sat a second, much smaller ring-ditch, barely 3.25 metres across, defined by a narrower U-shaped fosse and encircled by an outer ring of post-holes, suggesting a timber structure of some kind once stood there. A north-facing entrance was marked by two post holes. Still further out, roughly 24 metres to the east, an arc of five small pits yielded struck flint and a fragment of Grooved Ware pottery. Grooved Ware is a distinctive style associated with the late Neolithic period in Britain and Ireland, typically dated to somewhere between 3000 and 2000 BC, which hints that activity at this spot may have begun earlier than the Bronze Age burials themselves. The combination of cremation urns, post settings, and Grooved Ware in close proximity makes this a quietly complex site, one where the boundary between the living and the dead was marked with considerable deliberate care.

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