A shell midden, essentially a prehistoric rubbish heap, stretches along the cliff face of the dune for roughly 34 metres and reaches about 0.8 metres in depth. That modest measurement represents a surprisingly intimate record, a compressed layer of daily life in which cockle shells predominate, mixed through dark brown soil with charcoal and burnt stones.

Middens like this one are among the most informative deposits an archaeologist can encounter. The shells speak to diet and coastal foraging; the charcoal and burnt stones suggest hearths or cooking activity nearby; the dark, organic soil is itself a product of sustained human occupation. What accumulated here was not deliberately buried but simply discarded, meal after meal, fire after fire, until the dune sands covered it and held it in place. The site sits on the southern side of Brandon Bay, on the Dingle Peninsula, a stretch of coastline with a long record of human settlement reaching back into prehistory. J. Cuppage documented it as part of a comprehensive archaeological survey of the Corca Dhuibhne region published in 1986, and it remains one of the less celebrated but quietly telling sites along that coastline.