It is classified as a monument, which places it within a broad and ancient category that spans everything from prehistoric burial mounds, sometimes called barrows, to early medieval earthworks thrown up for ritual, territorial, or defensive purposes. Beyond that classification, the specifics of what this particular mound represents, who raised it and when, remain formally undisclosed.

The place-name offers a small clue where the archaeology currently cannot. Knockaun derives from the Irish Cnocán, meaning a small hill or hillock, a diminutive that was often applied to man-made rises as much as natural ones. In a county like Mayo, where the landscape is layered with the traces of communities stretching back thousands of years, an earthen mound might belong to almost any period. Similar features elsewhere in the west of Ireland have turned out to be Neolithic passage tomb satellites, Bronze Age burial sites, or the eroded remnants of ringfort banks. Without excavation records or survey data in the public domain, Knockaun's mound keeps its own counsel.