A ring-ditch is exactly what the name suggests: a circular trench, usually cut in a U-profile, that once enclosed a burial mound or a low earthen barrow. What survives in the soil, long after any mound has been levelled by centuries of ploughing, is the ghost of that enclosure.

The larger of the two circles measured roughly 10.5 metres across on the outside, with the enclosing ditch running about 1.25 metres wide. Inside it, archaeologists found two urn burials, the charred remains of the dead placed in ceramic vessels in a practice associated broadly with the Bronze Age, along with what appears to have been a separate cremation pit. About eight metres to the north-east sat a much smaller companion, barely 3.25 metres in outer diameter, its shallow fosse only 0.3 metres across. This smaller feature had its own outer ring of post-holes, suggesting some kind of wooden structure once stood around it, and a clearly defined entrance on the north side marked by two further post-holes. The contrast in scale between the two enclosures raises obvious questions about whether they served the same function or commemorated different individuals or different moments in time. A short distance away, roughly 24 metres to the east, an arc of five small pits added another layer of complexity: they yielded struck flint and a fragment of Grooved Ware pottery, a distinctive decorated ceramic style associated with late Neolithic ritual activity in Ireland and Britain, suggesting that human use of this particular ground may have begun even before the ring-ditches were cut. The site was excavated under licence as part of a broader programme of archaeological investigation at Milltown North.