It is easy to mistake for a natural rise in the ground, but its dimensions tell a different story: sixteen metres east to west, twenty metres north to south, and still standing to a height of 1.2 metres despite considerable levelling over time.

This is a fulacht fia, a type of prehistoric cooking site found in great numbers across Ireland, typically dating from the Bronze Age. The standard interpretation is that stones were heated in a fire, then dropped into a water-filled trough to bring it to a boil, producing a method of cooking that left behind a characteristic horseshoe-shaped mound of cracked, heat-shattered stone. What makes the Scarteen example quietly interesting is that its burnt material has been incorporated into the bank of a separate circular enclosure, the two features overlapping in a way that suggests a longer and more layered history of use on this particular patch of ground. The enclosure itself, referred to in the archaeological record by a separate entry number, has been largely levelled, so the fulacht material is now the more visible of the two features, preserved in what remains of the bank.