Court tombs, sometimes called court cairns, are Neolithic monuments typically dating to around 4000 BCE or earlier, characterised by an open semicircular or oval forecourt of standing stones leading into one or more roofed gallery chambers. They are among the earliest megalithic structures in Ireland, and Mayo has an unusually high concentration of them, making the county something of a focal point for understanding how these communities treated their dead and organised ceremonial space.

The principal scholarly record for this tomb comes from Ruaidhrí de Valera and Seán Ó Nualláin, whose meticulous county-by-county survey of Irish megalithic tombs, published in 1964, systematically documented monuments like this one at a time when many were poorly understood or at risk of being overlooked altogether. De Valera and Ó Nualláin's work across multiple volumes remains a foundational reference for anyone studying Irish prehistory, and their Mayo volume drew attention to the remarkable density and variety of megalithic construction in the west of Ireland. The placename Shanvodinnaun itself, likely derived from Irish, hints at the long human presence in this landscape, though the monument it marks predates any written record of the area by several millennia.