During excavations at a site designated Area C near Ballyclogh, what emerged from the ground was a burnt mound, one of the most common yet least visually dramatic prehistoric features in the Irish landscape. Burnt mounds are accumulations of fire-cracked stone and charcoal-rich soil, the debris of a process that involved repeatedly heating stones in a fire and dropping them into a water-filled trough to bring it to the boil. They are found in their thousands across Ireland, typically dating to the Bronze Age, and they speak to a recurring, practical activity, though precisely what that activity was, whether cooking, bathing, industrial processing, or something else entirely, remains a matter of ongoing debate.

What makes this particular example of some interest is what lay beneath it. Archaeologist Yvonne Whitty, who excavated the site under excavation licence E3227, found that the mound had sealed a trough, meaning the accumulated stone and debris had built up over time directly on top of the vessel used in the original process. This kind of stratigraphy, where later material buries and preserves earlier features, can help establish the sequence of use at a site. An associated pit was also identified nearby, and it appears to have functioned as a disposal area for spent burnt mound material, somewhere to clear out the exhausted, heat-fractured stones once they were no longer useful for heating water.