A field system, in archaeological terms, refers to the surviving physical traces of ancient land division, typically low earthen banks, stone walls, or subtle ridge patterns that once organised the landscape into plots for cultivation or grazing. These features can date from the Bronze Age through to the post-medieval period, and Mayo, with its boggy uplands and relatively undisturbed terrain, holds some of the best-preserved examples in Europe.

Field systems of this kind often endure precisely because the land around them was eventually abandoned rather than ploughed under. When a community moved on, or was cleared, or simply declined, the boundaries they had built into the earth were left to be slowly covered by peat or grass, preserved rather than destroyed by neglect. In parts of Connacht, blanket bog growth has acted almost as a seal, protecting earthworks beneath it for millennia. The townland name Dookinelly likely derives from Irish, as most Mayo placenames do, though the specific etymology here is not certain. What is clear is that the area was at some point actively farmed and organised, its land apportioned and worked in a way that left enough of a physical signature to be recognised and recorded as a monument.