That ambiguity is precisely what makes the site interesting. Eleven features along this single stretch of river were identified as fulachta fiadha, a designation that itself requires a moment's explanation: a fulacht fia is a type of prehistoric cooking site, typically consisting of a stone-lined trough filled with water that was heated by dropping fire-cracked stones into it, leaving behind a characteristic horseshoe-shaped mound of burnt and shattered rock. They are found in their thousands across Ireland, usually in low-lying, wet ground close to a water source, and their concentration along riverbanks is entirely characteristic.

What complicates the picture at Curraghadobbin is that the mounds here do not conform to the classic form. They are low and amorphous, ranging considerably in size, from roughly 17 metres in diameter up to an unusually large 51.6 by 32.2 metres, with heights between about 0.2 and 0.68 metres. None show the clear evidence of a trough that would make identification straightforward, and researchers have noted that the features could equally be natural in origin. The eleven fulachta fiadha along this stretch were identified by Will Forbes, but the subsequent modification of the landscape, with the river canalised and the adjacent fields reclaimed, has made the archaeology harder to read. Whether the original features were disturbed during those land improvements, or whether they were always ambiguous, is not something the current ground surface can easily answer.