The evidence for all of this turned up not through deliberate investigation but as a byproduct of topsoil stripping across a large development area, the kind of large-scale groundwork that, in Ireland, routinely brings archaeologists onto site before machinery moves in.

A fulacht fia is a type of prehistoric cooking or heating site, recognised by its characteristic burnt mound of shattered, fire-cracked stones and the trough or pit that was its functional heart. At Gunnocks, archaeologists P. Duffy, D. Bayle, and J. Whitaker were conducting monitoring across roughly 92 hectares intermittently between December 2015 and October 2018 when they identified 37 locations of potential archaeological importance. At Site 37, they recorded two pits close together. The smaller was oval, roughly 0.94 metres by 0.64 metres and only about 10 centimetres deep, filled with layers of grey to black silty clay mixed with stones. A larger pit, 1.4 metres by 1.1 metres and 30 centimetres deep, lay just 2 metres to the east, similarly filled. Charcoal recovered from the site included ash, alder, hazel, fruitwood, oak, and blackthorn, a mix that reflects the kind of scrubby, varied woodland typical of the Irish early Bronze Age landscape. A hazel sample taken from the upper fill of the trough was radiocarbon dated to between 2127 and 1899 cal. BC, placing activity at the site firmly in the Early Bronze Age, a period when fulachtaí fia were in widespread use across Ireland.