Henge corrals?

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>"None of this is a quest for spirituality in the 21st century it is based on observation, excavation and common sense."<

But I'm afraid a lot of it <i>is</i> based on spirituality fitz. Go out to Avebury on any day of the week (let alone this week!) and I'll put good money on the majority of people there being on some sort of spiritual quest. Without getting into the numbers game, I just wonder how many people are interested in stone circles from the viewpoint of the 'spiritual' compared to those interested in them from the purely 'archaeological'?

I'll take with a smile you're suggestion that I'm tying in the archaeological debate with crystals etc but should like to point out that even a quick scan through some of the threads here on TMA will reveal how quickly the archaeological debate <i>can</i> get muddied by the Crystal Entity :-)

As for my 'almost Marxist's' comments... come, come; I have never rejected the ritualized aspect of ancient societies or their structures but merely pointed out (as have others) that some of the structures we have believed to be ritual/ceremonial may actually have been purely utilitarian. There aint nowt wrong with that is there?

Nowt wrong at all. To listen to some of the ritualists, you wonder how Neolithic people ever found the time or energy to feed, clothe and house themselves and their animals. They apparently spent all of their time stargazing, erecting stones and ceremonial earthworks none of which had any practical use whatsoever. Life just isn't like that. It's the workers that support the priests and aristocracy and if that's Marxist then so be it. Just consider the labour and logistics required to build Silbury Hill for example. Where did the workers live, what did they eat, where was it grown? Where was meat on the hoof kept? Loose or corralled? If corralled - why not within Avebury? If loose then they would need to be brought from afar and regularly moved on to fresh grazing grounds - where are the drove roads?

It is foolish to look upon Neolithic society as a ritual obsessed spiritual paradise. The entire economy needs to be understood.

I'll not muddy the waters any further, I shall stick strictly to the archaeological evidence and I shall deliberately avoid the henges of Wessex.

Henges are not just stand-alone structures they are part of a revolution that occured in the late fourth millenium BC. Harding describes this revolution as "a tear in history".
What happened, the whole world view of the people from Orkney to the south coast of England changed , the long barrows were sealed , the cursuses fell into dis-repair, the linear perspective moved to a circular world view.
The evolution of the henge from the enclosure is part of this revolution. The earliest henges on Orkney are contemporary with the earliest henges in the south of England, some thing major was happening in Britain Along with this came radical changes in material culture, burial practices changed, Grooved Ware pottery spread south from Orkney, the nature of feasting changed, cattle fell out of favour as the flesh of choice at the feast became the pig, prestige objects begin to appear in great numbers, carved balls, maceheads, pins polished axes etc all of which indictes a change in society, a change that lasted five hundred years.
Find yourself a henge that has been excavated and then have a look at the finds from the excavation, you will find very little material that is associated with the 'domestic' business of the Neolithic. What you will find are deposits that have been deliberately placed in the ground including human remains, special artifacts, wild animal remains. All of this would indicate that the henge was not a place where domestic activities took place.

Then take a look at the way some henges were maintained, the ditches may have been deliberately filled-in with clean gravel and then at a later date re-cut, respecting earlier deposits.
I could go on and on but I won't.
Where does all this lead?
It leads me to the conclusion that henges were not places where domestic activities took place. So if the activities that occured within a henge were not domestic, what were they?