The discovery was made during excavation work in December 2018, when what had been greenfield ground was stripped back by hand to reveal a cluster of features that nobody had known was there.

The pit itself, designated C6, measured 0.76 metres by 0.60 metres and was only 0.18 metres deep, shallow enough that it might easily have been lost to any more cursory investigation. What made it legible as archaeology was its layering. The lowest fill had accumulated through natural silting, suggesting the pit was left open for a period after it was first dug. Above that lay the material that gave the site its significance: pyre debris mixed with cremated bone. Osteological analysis, the examination of burnt skeletal remains, identified at least one adult and possibly one juvenile among the deposits. Charcoal recovered from the same layer was identified as alder and oak, the fuels used to build the pyre, and radiocarbon dating placed the event firmly in the Late Bronze Age. The pit was part of a small grouping of features, including two postholes connected by a slot, all of which had been sealed at some point under large flat stones. Archaeologist Yvonne Whitty, who led the excavation under licence, noted that the proximity of these features and their shared capping suggested they belonged to the same episode of activity. The site falls within the constraint area for Baltinglass Historic Town, a designation that requires archaeological assessment before development proceeds, which is precisely why the pit came to light at all.