The four cremation pits at Cullenwaine, each averaging roughly 0.7 metres by 0.6 metres, were found grouped together in the north-west corner of the site, their fills containing fragments of cremated bone. Alongside them were four possible cremation pyres, suggesting that the burning and the burial happened in the same general area, perhaps even as part of a single repeated ritual sequence.

The site came to light during Phase 2 excavations led by John Tierney of Eachtra Archaeological Projects, carried out under licence as part of the N7 Castletown to Nenagh road scheme, a 35-kilometre infrastructure project commissioned by Laois County Council and the National Roads Authority. Cullenwaine 1, as the area was designated, had first been tested in 2007 and was subsequently excavated more fully. What emerged was a surprisingly dense concentration of prehistoric activity: three spreads of burnt-mound material, ten troughs, two hearths, stake-holes, post-holes, and two ditches cutting diagonally across the site on a north-east to south-west alignment. Burnt mounds are a well-known feature of the Irish Bronze Age, typically associated with the heating of water in troughs, possibly for cooking, bathing, or other communal purposes, and the troughs at Cullenwaine, none of which showed any evidence of timber lining, fit neatly into that pattern. What made the site more unusual was the co-presence of the cremation pits, clustered separately from the burnt-mound material in the eastern and north-western portions of the site, hinting at overlapping but distinct uses of the same landscape over time.