Crinoids are ancient marine animals, their fossilised remains often resembling small stone discs or segments of column, and they are not native to the immediate geology of this part of Ireland. The care involved in gathering them, and then burning at least some before deposition, points to an act that was considered rather than casual, though what it meant to the person who performed it remains entirely open.

The site came to light during development works for the Center Parcs Leisure complex at Newcastle, when archaeologist Jonathan King excavated the area under licence. What he uncovered was modest in scale but precise in detail: two post-holes, a shallow hearth measuring roughly 1.3 metres by 0.9 metres, and two pits of different character. The first pit contained an orange quartzite water-rolled platform core, a piece of worked stone shaped by river action and then selected, presumably, for its material or form. The second, more southerly pit was where the fossils were found. Radiocarbon dating of material from the most easterly post-hole confirmed a Late Bronze Age date, placing this small, careful arrangement of objects and fire somewhere in the period roughly between 1200 and 600 BC. The post-holes to the north of the hearth suggest some kind of structure once stood here, though its nature is impossible to reconstruct from what survives.