Poulnabrone Portal Tomb

In 1986, Dr. Anne Lynch and a team of National Monuments archaeologists excavated the Poulnabrone tomb in hopes to preserve it (Cotter 1987:12).  During this excavation, one portal stone was replaced, and the team excavated the chamber, portico, and cairn.Excavations were mainly in the chamber of the portal tomb to repair the crack in the eastern portal stone. 

The burial chamber was 25 cm deep.  The dolmen, which is also called a portal tomb, is made up of a large single capstone that rests on two portal stones, two more orthostats, and an end stone.  The portal stones are each 1.8 m tall.  The entrance of the dolmen faces to the North.  A sill stone crosses the front of the entrance, and might have extended all the way up to the cap stone, thus sealing the tomb.  The capstone is 12 ft by 7 ft and angles from the portals down to the rear.  The chamber was 8 ft by 4 ft in size (Cotter 1987:12 and Bennett 1989:10).

Human and animal remains were found at the site.  The animal remains found in the tomb may suggest that the people using them had ceremonial/ritual sacrifice of animals at the burials. Artifacts including potsherds, arrowheads, scrapers and stone disc beads were found at the site (Cotter 1987:12).  The last deposits made at Poulnabrone are believed to be from the Early Bronze Age.  This was the burial of an infant dating to around 1750-1420 BC.  Bronze Age burials were often inserted into Neolithic megaliths. This Bronze Age deposits show that the megaliths still had meaning to the people of the area for centuries after they were built.   Although the meaning of the site may have changed by the Early Bronze Age it was still just as important to the people during that time (Jones 2004: 14).   

It has been thought that the portal tomb was an expression of territoriality.  It may have been an overpopulated area and this was a marker of claimed land and the claimers of the land would place their ancestors’ remains there Jones 2004:14).