Archaeologists believe settlers may have manufactured gold jewelleryat 'industrial' complex near Ashford, Co. Wicklow.
The complex of sites uncovered at the Cullenmore Bends is significant because of its location on the east coast, and because it is thought the complex provides evidence the Bronze Age settlers manufactured gold jewellery in Wicklow.
Significant Bronze Age finds have been made in Kerry, Derry and Mayo but nothing of the size or importance of the Wicklow find has been uncovered on the east coast, according to archaeologists.
The extensive burnt-mound complex at the Cullenmore Bends was excavated recently as part of an archaeological assessment associated with the Ashford bypass. It lies in the line of the proposed Cullenmore interchange.
Some 18 burnt mounds have been uncovered by a team of archaeologists who began working on the site last June. The work is being overseen by Ms Catherine McLoughlin and a team of up to 75.
When the first nine mounds and troughs were discovered, many of them still lined with timbers laid down during the Bronze Age 2,500 to 500 BC, it was thought that this was just an unusually large collection of fulacht fiadhs or cooking troughs. However, as a further nine were uncovered clustered around the banks of a stream, their use as cooking troughs was queried.
Archaeologists know the troughs were lined with timber and used to boil water. Rocks were heated in a nearby hearth and then placed in the water to boil it. The burnt mounds came about as the rocks, having cooled, were removed from the trough and placed in a heap close by to be used again.
The mounds at Ashford cover some 800 metres and the largest is 20 metres by 30 metres indicating that the trough was in use over a long period. No bones or signs of cooking were found.
Early indications suggest that the grouping of troughs in Ashford was a place where metals were were first fashioned. Co Wicklow has all the necessary mineral deposits for the making of Bronze Age artefacts such as the gold torc found in Mayo recently.
Bronze Age metal-working sites already identified in Ireland have been on the west coast in Kerry and on the north coast in Derry.
There is no evidence of dwelling places surrounding the troughs as one would expect if they were used for cooking. The dwelling places are over a hill, on the other side of a high burial place, where cremated human remains dating from the Bronze Age were discovered during the dig.
While the complex has what appears to be evidence of a large area of habitation, as well as the possible industrial site, it is not yet known if they were occupied contemporaneously.
Further south at Rosanna, near Rathnew, the same team has discovered the remains of an Anglo-Norman/medieval settlement which dates from the 13th or 14th century. It is a ditched feature some 47 metres in diameter.
An earlier discovery of a site in Kilmurray townland, near Kilmacanogue, also in Co Wicklow, revealed a round house thought to date from between 2000 and 1500 BC. It was uncovered during an archaeological dig undertaken in association with the laying of a gas pipeline for Bord Gáis.