A loose line of stones trails southward from the arc's western edge for almost five metres. Taken together, they are the remnant of something much larger, and locally people have long called the spot the Giants Grave, which says something about how impressive it must once have appeared.

Writing in 1918, a researcher named Power argued that the correct name for the site was Carn Geal, and that the arc of standing stones is what remains of a retaining wall that once held a substantial cairn, a mound of stones typically raised over a burial. That cairn, he recorded, had been destroyed within his own lifetime, a detail that sharpens the sense of loss. At the centre he noted the remains of a square chamber or pit, which is consistent with a cist burial, a form of prehistoric grave in which the body or cremated remains were placed within a box-like structure of stone slabs. The Ordnance Survey mapped the site as Cahergal in both its 1842 and 1904 six-inch editions, adding another layer of naming to a place that has accumulated identities. The surrounding area was planted with conifers at some point and then replanted around 1987, meaning the landscape the cairn once commanded has itself been repeatedly altered around whatever stones remain.