Archaeological test trenching in a field immediately east of Killalee church uncovered two cremation pits, the kind of features associated with prehistoric burial practice, where the remains of the dead were placed, often alongside charred bone and sometimes grave goods, in carefully dug cuts in the earth.

The two pits had already suffered considerably before archaeologists reached them. Both had been heavily truncated by a plough furrow, meaning that generations of agricultural work had sliced through the upper portions of the deposits, leaving only fragmentary traces behind. Of the easternmost pit, just the base and one side remained intact, but what survived was excavated in full, as documented by Dennehy in 2002. The second pit, recorded nearby, was similarly compromised. The site sits in pasture to the north of the main road, in the immediate shadow of Killalee church, a juxtaposition that quietly underlines how the same ground can accumulate layers of the dead across entirely different eras and belief systems, each largely unaware of what came before.