That map, produced by Bateman between 1716 and 1717, marks it plainly as 'A great stone', which is the kind of straightforward label that suggests the surveyor considered it a recognised landmark rather than something requiring explanation. Standing stones of this type are prehistoric in origin, raised as boundary markers, ritual monuments, or memorials, though in most individual cases the original purpose is lost and only the stone itself remains.

The Bateman reference is the earliest documented notice of the stone and places it firmly in the landscape at a moment when such features were still being recorded as practical waypoints. That a commercial or estate surveyor in 1716 thought it worth naming implies the stone was already conspicuous and widely known locally, whatever its prehistoric origins. Its position at the corner of a townland boundary is suggestive too, since standing stones in Ireland are frequently found at the edges of territories, where they may have served to mark divisions in the land across many successive centuries of use.