Ring-barrows, a form of low prehistoric funerary mound encircled by a shallow ditch known as a fosse, are rarely dramatic features in the landscape, but the group at Knockanpierce takes subtlety to a particular extreme. The mounds here rise only a few centimetres above their surrounding ditches; the tallest internal mound measures around three metres in diameter and lifts barely a fraction above the fosse floor. To walk across this field without knowing what to look for would almost certainly mean walking over them without registering their presence at all.

The monuments came to light not through excavation or ground survey but through aerial photography. A 1986 aerial photograph, taken as part of the Ordnance Survey aerial programme, revealed up to nine possible circular features in the field. The question of whether these were prehistoric burials or simply the remnants of cattle feeding rings, circular patches of disturbed ground left by animals gathered around hay or feed, was a reasonable one to raise. What argues against the more mundane explanation is the variation in size and proportion across the features. Six of them are now considered likely ring-barrows, arranged roughly in a diamond pattern across the field as the ground rises gently to the south. The most southerly example sits on a slight natural rise and is the most visible of the group; its fosse on the western side and its low central mound both show clearly on aerial imagery, even though the eastern side has been substantially worn away over time. The remaining five are lower-lying and even less distinct at ground level, each a shallow circular scar in the turf, ranging from roughly six to eight and a half metres in diameter.