A cist is a small stone-lined grave, typically just large enough to contain a crouched or contracted human burial, constructed by setting upright slabs around the body and capping them with a flat cover stone. They are associated primarily with the Bronze Age in Ireland, roughly 2500 to 500 BC, and were often dug into the ground and covered over, surviving as low, unremarkable disturbances in fields until a plough or a drainage project brought them to light. Their quiet ubiquity across the Irish landscape is part of what makes each individual example easy to overlook.