It's probably a stupid point. But there weren't any rabbits in Britain in the Neolithic? So if you were going to do anything in a henge in the summer without wading through kneehigh grasses, you might want to have special mowing animals in for at least a while to tidy the area up a bit.
But somehow I can't see that when henges are renowned for their paucity of artifacts, as though they were deliberately kept pure and clean, that you'd want a load of animals pooing everywhere. You wouldn't want animals pooing in Canterbury Cathedral, would you, god's creations or not.
I'm trying to find out about the persistence of nitrates in the soil. But not getting very far yet. They'd be easy enough to test for but unless you've got an unusual soil they'd surely all be leached out by now? But do I have a vague memory of them discussing this on the Durrington Walls tt programme?
