It is eleven metres long, twelve metres wide, and just over a metre high, composed almost entirely of burnt and fire-cracked stone. That modest profile is the signature of a fulacht fia, a type of prehistoric cooking or heating site found in extraordinary numbers across Ireland, typically Bronze Age in date, and almost always positioned close to a water source.

The basic mechanics of a fulacht fia involved heating stones in a fire and then dropping them into a water-filled trough, bringing the water rapidly to a boil. The cracked and spent stones were discarded into a heap around the trough, and it is this accumulation of shattered, heat-damaged material that survives as the characteristic horseshoe-shaped mound visible today. The Curraghgorm example fits the pattern: the proximity to a stream, the composition of burnt material, and the familiar low-slung shape are all consistent with the type. The mound has not survived entirely intact, with material removed from the south-western and northern sides at some point, leaving those edges lower than the rest.