These features are among the more quietly ambiguous finds in Irish archaeology. They are often associated with prehistoric activity, whether domestic, ritual, or industrial, but they rarely announce their purpose clearly.

The spread measured fourteen metres by four and a half metres and was only around thirteen centimetres deep at its thickest, making it a broad but thin trace in the earth. It came to light during archaeological monitoring of topsoil removal at Gorteen Quarry, a standard precaution on development sites in Ireland where subsurface remains are a constant possibility. What the excavators found had already been partially disturbed: a modern field drain, connected to an overlying field boundary embankment, had cut through one edge of the deposit, truncating it before anyone thought to look for it. The archaeology, in other words, had survived into the age of land drainage and field enclosure, but only just.