The trackway at Cappakeel was not excavated and displayed or lifted for study; it was documented, protected, and reburied, sealed back into the ground it had occupied for an unknown length of time.

The site came to light in 2003 during archaeological work ahead of the M7 Heath-Mayfield motorway scheme, when Jonathan Dempsey of Archaeological Consultancy Services Ltd uncovered what became known as Cappakeel A. It consisted of two parallel ditches running north-northwest to south-southeast, set approximately three metres apart, the kind of spacing consistent with a flanked trackway, where shallow drainage ditches ran either side of a travelled surface to keep it passable. The feature was found within an area of deep fill, which helped account for its survival. Crucially, the ditches appear to correspond with a trackway already visible on the Ordnance Survey's first edition map of 1839, suggesting the route was still in use, or at least still legible in the landscape, into the nineteenth century. How much further back it extends is not recorded.

What makes the site quietly unusual is precisely its invisibility. Unlike excavated road sections that end up in museum displays or heritage parks, this one was judged best left where it lay. It exists now as a kind of layered coincidence, an older road preserved in situ beneath a newer one, known only through the paperwork generated during a few weeks of groundwork two decades ago.