Archaeology

Timber features - trackways and logboats

Timber trackway, Corlea, Co. Longford

The most common objects found in peatland are worked wood. They can vary from a single piece of wood with a deliberately sharpened end to a structure such as a trackway, logboat, platform or house footing. Lines of stakes, cut oak planks and logs placed together are all indicators of deliberately placed structures. All such finds are worth recording and investigating as they may be an indication of a more complex site in the vicinity.

Trackways

Trackways can occur at any depth in a raised bog as they have been constructed for thousands of years. They are found in many forms and were used for a variety of reasons as the shortest crossings across peatland. They served as parts of major routeways or provided paths called droveways across soft ground for farm animals going to and from pasture.

Brushwood trackway, Corlea, Co. Longford

In the most primitive form, a layer of brushwood was often laid down to provide a dry trackway, perhaps in exceptionally wet weather. Screens of wattle were used in a similar way a technology borrowed from house building.

The more elaborate trackways are true engineering projects using carefully selected, cut timbers on runners to provide long-lasting, heavy duty transport routes. If a timber trackway is discovered in peat-cutting scientists can now closely date it. In Northern Ireland there are trackways dating from as early as medieval times, such as Slaghtfreeden, Garvahullion and a platform at Derryloughan.

Map of trackways recorded in Northern Ireland peatlands

Click on a marker on the map above, to find out more about the archaelogical finds.

Logboats

Logboat, Quolie, Co. Down

A logboat is a thick log, often oak, hollowed out to create a long narrow canoe. In Ireland logboats were used as a means of transport for a considerable period of time, perhaps up to 7000 years. The earliest known from Ireland are late Mesolithic or very early Neolithic and one from Lough Neagh has been dated to 5490 - 5246 BC. Right up to the 17th century, the north of Ireland appears to have had proportionally more logboat traffic on its lakes and rivers than anywhere else in Ireland. As roads gradually improved in number, quality and safety and as permanent bridges were erected at river crossings, the need for logboats diminished. Some of these abandoned boats have been found preserved in peatlands. There are eleven such finds from Northern Ireland, three of them dating to the Iron Age or earlier.

Map of logboats recorded in Northern Ireland peatlands

Click on a marker on the map above, to find out more about the archaelogical finds.