That is, in essence, the archaeological situation. A site was recorded as one of three possible beehive huts in the area, beehive huts being the corbelled dry-stone structures, roughly circular and domed, associated with early medieval settlement and monastic activity across the Kerry landscape. When inspectors went to look for it, it was simply not there, or at least not visible at ground level.

The three possible huts at Scarteen sit within a field system, suggesting a cluster of activity that was once coherent enough to leave traces in the land itself, even if the individual structures have not survived in any legible form. The hut in question had already been described as being in a state of collapse before it disappeared from view entirely. Whether it has been swallowed by vegetation, absorbed back into the field boundaries, or was never substantial enough to be confirmed as a hut at all remains unresolved. The site belongs to a category that archaeologists handle with careful hedging, a "possible" rather than a confirmed monument, its status suspended somewhere between presence and absence.