84 H C, Lawlor on 



thoroughly impregnated with hearth remains from the top 

 chamber ; burned sticks and charcoal, decayed half-burned bones 

 and pot fragments of various sorts rewarded our search, and a 

 piece of iron, apparently the handle of a sword or knife. I spent 

 several days at this work with two men, but owing to the con- 

 fined space in which we had to work, and the difficulty of getting 

 our truck loads down, the quantity of our finds is small, and the 

 excavation was not quite completed. 



When we got the pottery fragments washed and examined, 

 however, they displayed considerable interest, some unlike any 

 other Souterrain pottery remains that I have met with up 

 to the present. They seem to prove that the Souterrain 

 had been in occupation, probably continuous, from the 

 middle ages back to far distant pre Jiistoric times It may 

 be remembered that in Donegore Cave, in the filling-in soil 

 of the upper passage I found one only fragment of the lip of 

 a pitcher of the 14th century type, but as it was not on the 

 original floor level on which were the fire remains with the large 

 cooking pot lying therein, but in the filling-up soil, it could not 

 be taken as evidence that it was part of a utensil used by the 

 dwellers in the cave. In Ballj'^martin, however, the roof of the 

 cave was perfect, and no filling in matter except the mud washed 

 in by the floods existed, the finds of pottery can be taken as a 

 certain indication of the vessels used by the actual dwellers in 

 the cave. 



Among the pottery were found — 



(A) A considerable part of a cooking vessel heavily sooted 

 on the outside, clean inside, the only clear example of a vessel 

 turned on a potter's wheel that I have found in a Souterrain. 



(B) A fragment of the bottom of a pan, which complete 

 would measure 5 inches across the bottom, shaped in a smooth 

 mould. The only example of moulded pottery I have found 

 in a Souterrain. 



(C) A fragment of pottery with glaze, of about the 14th 

 century ; the fragment is too small to enable accurate speculation 

 as to the type of vessel. 



