But this kind of feature, known as a fulacht fia (sometimes spelled fulacht fiadh), represents one of the most common archaeological monument types in Ireland. The prevailing interpretation is that these sites functioned as outdoor cooking places, where stones were heated in a fire and then dropped into a water-filled trough to bring it to the boil. They are found in their thousands across the country, typically in low-lying or marshy ground, and most date to the Bronze Age, though the exact period of any given example is often difficult to pin down.

This particular site at Timmore came to light not through deliberate heritage investigation but through road planning. In October 2001, archaeologist Eoin Halpin carried out testing along the proposed route of the N11 Newtownmountkennedy to Ballynabarny Road Scheme at nearby Kiltimon, and the mound was identified as a probable fulacht fia. Because the site lay directly in the path of the planned road improvement, full excavation was required before construction could proceed. Ruairí Ó Baoill and Yvonne McQuaid carried out that excavation between 8 and 28 May 2002. They uncovered a stone hearth and a cooking platform beneath the accumulated layers of burnt stone, confirming the site's function. Curiously, no cooking trough was found within the excavated area, which is usually a defining feature of such sites. A series of post-holes, several of them still containing fragments of timber in their original positions, pointed to other structures or activities on the site, though their precise purpose remained unclear. No artefacts of any kind were recovered, leaving the question of when the site was in use entirely open.