What lies beneath is a fulacht fia, a type of ancient cooking site found in enormous numbers across Ireland, typically Bronze Age in origin. The name, sometimes rendered as fulacht fiadh, is traditionally translated as something close to "cooking place of the deer," though their exact function has been debated by archaeologists for decades. The standard interpretation is that a trough was filled with water, stones were heated in a nearby fire, and the hot stones were then dropped into the water to bring it to boiling point. The burnt and shattered stones, discarded after use, are what accumulates into the characteristic spread that survives at sites like this one.