A cist is essentially a box of carefully placed flat stones, set into the ground and sealed with a capstone, used to contain a crouched burial or a cremated deposit. They are found across Ireland in their hundreds, often turning up in the course of ploughing or drainage work, occasionally still holding skeletal remains or a plain pottery vessel placed beside the body. This one, at Knocknashammer, is recorded as a monument, which means someone, at some point, noted its presence and considered it worth preserving in the archaeological record.

Beyond its existence and its county, the documentary detail for this particular cist is sparse. Sligo itself has long been recognised as an area of significant prehistoric activity, sitting within a broader landscape that includes the remarkable passage tomb complex at Carrowmore and the ridge of Knocknarea to the west. Cists of the kind recorded at Knocknashammer typically date to the early to middle Bronze Age, roughly the second millennium BC, and were often constructed as isolated graves rather than as part of larger burial grounds. Whether this one was found intact, disturbed, or only partially visible is not currently known from available sources.