A dark spread in the soil, visible when the field is ploughed, marks the location of a fulacht fia, one of the most common yet least understood monument types in the Irish landscape. These are the remains of ancient burnt mounds, low horseshoe-shaped spreads of fire-cracked stone and charcoal-rich earth thought to date primarily from the Bronze Age. The leading theory holds that they were cooking sites, where stones were heated in a fire and then dropped into a water-filled trough to bring it to the boil, though some researchers have proposed other uses, from brewing to bathing.

The site at Ring has had a complicated recent past. According to local knowledge, burnt material was removed from the spot some years before it was formally recorded, a loss that strips away some of the physical evidence that would otherwise help archaeologists read the site. What remains is that characteristic black spread in the ploughed ground, the dark staining left by centuries of charred stone and organic material compressed into the earth. The proximity to a well is not incidental. Fulachtaí fia are almost always found near a reliable water source, whether a stream, a spring, or a well, because a ready supply of water was central to whatever activity took place there.