The find turned out to be a fulacht fia, a type of prehistoric cooking site found widely across Ireland, typically recognised by a characteristic mound of fire-cracked stones mixed into charcoal-rich soil. The basic principle was straightforward: stones were heated in fire, then dropped into a water-filled trough to bring it to a boil. Repeated heating and sudden cooling eventually shattered the stones, and the discarded fragments accumulated into the mound that survives today.

Test trenching carried out in 2019, under licence number 19E0201 and recorded by Gillespie, revealed a subsurface mound measuring roughly 6.5 metres east to west and 11.5 metres north to south, with a depth of around one metre. The mass of fragmented stone sits within a charcoal-rich soil matrix and appears to rest directly on natural boulder clay, suggesting the deposit has remained largely undisturbed since it was formed. Its position immediately south of a spring is entirely characteristic; ready access to water was a practical necessity for this kind of site, and fulachtaí fia are very frequently found near streams, springs, or boggy ground. A later field drain, curving across the northern edge of the mound, is the most visible sign that the landscape has been managed and modified in the centuries since, though it has left the bulk of the deposit intact.