Two stones protrude from the top, aligned northeast to southeast, and when the archaeologists Ruaidhrí de Valera and Seán Ó Nualláin examined the site in 1961, they believed these were the remnants of a cist burial, a small stone-lined grave box, set unusually high within the mound itself. The southeastern edge of the cairn runs in an unusually straight line for about three metres, as though it was cut back at some point, perhaps to clear ground or rob stone for a later use.

The cairn sits within a large multiperiod field system, meaning the landscape around it accumulated boundaries and enclosures across many different eras of occupation. A D-shaped enclosure of later date was built just five and a half metres to the north, its builders presumably well aware of the older mound nearby, possibly treating it as a landmark or boundary point. The wider area holds two further cairns, one lying about 47 metres to the north-northwest and another about 64 metres to the northeast, and Grant's 1995 survey identified this cluster as part of a broader complex of prehistoric monuments in the locality. The land slopes away immediately to the south of the plateau, which may have made this elevated position deliberate, a place chosen to be seen from the lower ground below.