Ringforts, known in Irish as raths or cashels depending on whether they were built from earthen banks or stone, were the dominant form of rural settlement during the early medieval period, roughly 500 to 1000 AD. Most were farmsteads, home to a single family and their livestock, enclosed by one or more circular banks and ditches that offered a degree of protection and marked out the boundaries of domestic life. The Earlhill example is recorded as a monument, though the details of its condition, dimensions, and precise construction have not yet been made publicly available.