A ring-barrow is a burial monument of the prehistoric period, typically consisting of a central mound enclosed by a ditch and an outer bank. At Leamaneh, the ditch appears to have been deliberately excavated in part to raise the interior platform, with most of the displaced earth thrown outward to build the surrounding bank.

The Irish Fieldschool of Prehistoric Archaeology from NUI Galway carried out a partial excavation of the site in 2018, and what emerged was a sequence reaching back to the Chalcolithic, the Copper Age transition into the Early Bronze Age, roughly the late third millennium BC. The earliest activity was funerary: small deposits of cremated bone were found alongside artefacts, among them a barbed and tanged arrowhead in white flint, a finely worked projectile point characteristic of this period. Four white flint flakes, possibly the debris of a single knapping session, were also recovered. At some later point, a standing stone was erected at the centre of the monument; before excavation, only a small fragment of it was visible above the turf. What is particularly unusual is that the cremation deposits did not end with prehistory. Further burials were placed around the standing stone apparently as late as the 6th to 9th centuries AD, suggesting the site retained some form of significance well into the early medieval period. Evidence of feasting activity and what may have been glass bead production was also identified from this later phase, hinting at gatherings of a kind that are difficult to characterise precisely but clearly went beyond simple burial.