The space is barely large enough to stand in, at most 1.45 metres high, roughly seven metres long and three and a half wide, its roof and walls formed by massive slabs tilted at random angles. No one constructed it; the chamber came about naturally, through the collapse and settling of boulders, yet Neolithic people found it, used it, and apparently kept returning to it across generations. The bones of between seven and ten individuals, ranging in age from an infant of three to twelve months to adults older than forty-five, were deposited here over a span that radiocarbon dating suggests covers the entire Neolithic period, from roughly 3620 to 2345 cal BC.

The site came to the attention of archaeologists in August 2016, when human bones found in the chamber were reported to the National Monuments Service, and a rescue excavation was carried out that same month. A further small deposit of bone, found in February 2017, was excavated in March of that year. What the excavators found was not burial in any conventional sense. The bones, studied by osteoarchaeologist Linda Lynch, are few in number, highly fragmented, and disarticulated; no complete individual is represented, and the remains of multiple people are commingled. Activity centred on a roughly rectangular pit in the middle of the chamber, its sides partly shaped by a massive sloping boulder and partly by rubble that appears to have been deliberately arranged. Bones lay on the surface of the pit, within it, and tucked into a natural crevice in the adjacent boulder, where a concentration of human teeth and bone fragments seems to have been purposefully inserted. Pieces of quartz were scattered throughout the space, and small quantities of charcoal on a natural stone ledge suggest that wooden torches were carried in to give light. No artefacts of any other kind were recovered.

The interpretation of what actually happened here remains open. One possibility is excarnation, a practice in which corpses were left in a sheltered location to allow soft tissue to decay, after which selected dry bones were removed for burial elsewhere. This would explain why only a small percentage of each individual is present. But other evidence complicates that reading. Some bones show weathering consistent with outdoor exposure before being brought into the chamber, suggesting that dry, disarticulated bones were carried in as deliberate ritual deposits rather than left to decay in situ. Several skull fragments were broken while still semi-fresh, pointing to deliberate post-mortem handling. The long span of the radiocarbon dates, though it may partly reflect bones curated from older burials elsewhere and introduced into the chamber later, hints that knowledge of this remote and physically awkward place was maintained and passed on across many centuries.