23rd July 2011, 10:09 PM
Thanks for that, I'll have a look through that tonight, it looks really useful. We found a few pieces of stuff that looked very like that clinker stuff in the flue/entrance so that may support the idea that it is a glass furnace...
Yeah the date...well I think that is why we were drawing a blank looking for info. There are some mentions of glass beads from Late Bronze Age and Iron Age sites (almost all high status sites ie Rathgall Hillfort and Emain Macha) and even some hints at manufacturing but nothing conclusive. Typically the sort of beads we've found would be identified as Early Medieval and that may well be the case here....on the other hand the site was covered by quite a build up of peat, to a similar depth as some of the proven Bronze Age sites on Slievemore, and is related to pre-bog field walls some of which at least were built in the Middle Bronze Age. In addition we have a small but quite nice flint and chert assemblage from the site which wouldn't be what I would expect from an Early Med site...One solution may be that the terrace was originally created in the Bronze Age but was reoccupied in the Early Med which would be a neat solution but doesn't necessarily fit with the depth of the peat. Then again peat formation and growth can be highly varied when you start looking at a very local scale, so maybe that is misleading us.
Anyway, damn cool site whatever the date. Any help is gratefully received as I'm pretty much peeing in the dark here
Yeah the date...well I think that is why we were drawing a blank looking for info. There are some mentions of glass beads from Late Bronze Age and Iron Age sites (almost all high status sites ie Rathgall Hillfort and Emain Macha) and even some hints at manufacturing but nothing conclusive. Typically the sort of beads we've found would be identified as Early Medieval and that may well be the case here....on the other hand the site was covered by quite a build up of peat, to a similar depth as some of the proven Bronze Age sites on Slievemore, and is related to pre-bog field walls some of which at least were built in the Middle Bronze Age. In addition we have a small but quite nice flint and chert assemblage from the site which wouldn't be what I would expect from an Early Med site...One solution may be that the terrace was originally created in the Bronze Age but was reoccupied in the Early Med which would be a neat solution but doesn't necessarily fit with the depth of the peat. Then again peat formation and growth can be highly varied when you start looking at a very local scale, so maybe that is misleading us.
Anyway, damn cool site whatever the date. Any help is gratefully received as I'm pretty much peeing in the dark here