The one at Scarteen sits on the western bank of a stream, its presence marked by a low, rush-covered mound of burnt stone and dark, fire-cracked material, roughly D-shaped in plan and rising just 0.6 metres from the surrounding ground. That flat eastern edge, 4.5 metres long, gives the mound its distinctive silhouette, and the burnt debris beneath the vegetation is the accumulated waste of repeated use over what may have been centuries.

A fulacht fia, to use the Irish term found at hundreds of sites across the country, is essentially the remains of a prehistoric cooking place. The typical method involved heating stones in a fire, then dropping them into a water-filled trough to bring it to a boil, a process that gradually shattered the stones into the charred, crumbly fragments that form these mounds. They cluster near water almost without exception, which is why this one sits beside its stream within an ancient field system. What makes Scarteen quietly interesting is the grouping: two further examples of the same type lie approximately 43 metres to the south and 15 metres to the north-east, suggesting that this particular corner of south-west Kerry saw sustained or repeated activity during the Bronze Age, rather than a single isolated episode of use.