Wedge tombs, so called because their gallery narrows and lowers from front to back in a distinctive wedge shape, are the most numerous type of megalithic tomb in Ireland, and Clare has an unusually high concentration of them. The Burren's thin soils and bare karst pavement have left many of these structures relatively exposed and unburied by centuries of agricultural disturbance, which is part of why so many survive here at all.

The tomb at Parknabinnia is documented in the foundational survey of Irish megalithic monuments compiled by Ruaidhrí de Valera and Seán Ó Nualláin, published in 1961 as the first volume of their Survey of the Megalithic Tombs of Ireland, which focused on County Clare. De Valera spent much of his career systematically cataloguing and classifying these structures, and his work with Ó Nualláin remains a key reference point for understanding the distribution and typology of wedge tombs across the country. Wedge tombs are generally associated with the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age, broadly spanning the period from around 2500 to 2000 BC, though dating individual examples with precision remains difficult. They are thought to have served as communal burial monuments, and some excavated examples have produced cremated human remains alongside pottery and flint tools.