Megalithic tombs are communal burial monuments built from large, uncut or roughly worked stones, constructed during the Neolithic period, roughly four to six thousand years ago, and they take several distinct forms across Ireland, including court tombs, portal tombs, and wedge tombs.

The primary scholarly record for this site comes from Ruaidhrí de Valera and Seán Ó Nualláin, whose Survey of the Megalithic Tombs of Ireland, Volume I, covering County Clare, was published by the Stationery Office in Dublin in 1961. That volume remains a foundational work for understanding the distribution and typology of these monuments across the county, and Gortlecka is among the sites catalogued within it. County Clare has a particularly dense concentration of wedge tombs, the most numerous tomb type in Ireland, and the Gortlecka example sits within a landscape that was clearly of considerable significance to Neolithic communities building and using such structures over an extended period.