Macalistee — Excavations Recently Conducted in Co. Galwatj. 509 



the bones of three persons. They had been cremated, and were so comminuted 

 that nothing of anthropological importance could be learnt from them. They 

 had simply been strewn on the ground in handfuls and covered with a thin 

 layer of earth, no attempt having been made to protect them with urns, with 

 stones, or in any other way. Nothing was deposited with the bones them- 

 selves : but rather deeper in the mound we unearthed two bones of a large ox, 

 and almost at the bottom fragments of two spherical green glass beads, and 

 the top of a small bone pin (Plate XLIII, tigs. 4, 5). The relative positions 

 of these objects are denoted by letters in the accompanying plan (Plate 

 XLIII, fig. 3). The human bones were at A, B, C ; the ox bones at D ; 

 the beads and pin round the point E. The human bones were only about 

 6 inches under the surface, the ox bones about midway through the mound, 

 the beads and pin deep down and near the base. A pile of stones had been 

 heaped up in the middle, on the original surface of the ground, to serve as a 

 nucleus for the mound. 



Mr. Armstrong, to whom I submitted these objects, directed my attention to 

 similar beads of late Hallstatt date from Germany, figured in Lindenschmidt's 

 AUherthiimer wiserer heiclnischen Vorzeit, vol. v, p. 62, plate xiv, nos. 217, 

 221. Such beads would probably take some time in finding their way into 

 Ireland ; and even if we had any evidence of Hallstatt culture in this country, 

 it would be rash to assign so early a date to the Grannagh specimens. On 

 the other hand, their association with cremated interments requires us to 

 date them to some pre-Christian epoch. This constrains us to assign them 

 to the La Tene period, which is all the more satisfactory as we had not up 

 till now any very definite information as to La T^.ne burial customs in this 

 country. 



While we cannot absolutely assume that the large scarped esker in the 

 same field with this interment belongs to the same date, there is a strong 

 presumption that this is so, and that therefore the very similar Masonbrook 

 mound may likewise be dated to the Iron Age. It may be mentioned here 

 that there are two other such adapted eskers on the same townland ; one 

 similar, but not so shapely, on the opposite side of the road from Loughrea 

 and a short distance further west; the other, marked " Giants' Grave" on the 

 0. S. map, almost within hail of the example before us. It bears on its summit 

 what has all the appearance of being a dilapidated cist. 



As the time between the end of the Bronze Age and the introduction of 

 Christianity is archaeological ly one of the most obscure in Ireland, the 

 inferences as to the date, here suggested, tentative though they must for the 

 moment be, are all the more welcome. The Turoe stone, the most important 

 La Tene monument that Ireland has yet yielded, comes from this district — it 



R.I. A. PROC, VOL. XXXUI., SECT. C. [71] 



