However, root balls as excarnation platforms are a truly, magnificently inspired concept. WHATEVER put that thought in your head?
So how would the (apparently/almost) impenetrable palisade play into that? All the ethnographically documented examples of excarnation platforms I've ever read about --and I'm no expert here, but, Native American and India Indian-- were more or less open to wandering about. Not physically cut off from the community.
Interesting. Very interesting.
conversely, why bother to drag an oak tree stump over a ton in weight and then bury it upside down in the centre of your so-called palisade. You could actually reach the tree through the narrow entrance by the way, though it would have been difficult for wild animals to do so, so we presume bird power is the solution to defleshing.
Why bother to erect stone circles, standing stones if there was not at the end a symbolic need to relate to the world around them and that uncomfortable thing called death has to have some form of ritual. The practicalities of disposing of bodies in certain environments can be difficult, Anglia is sadly bereft of stone.
Francis Pryor of Flag Fen fame excavated the site and his wife Maisie Taylor a timber expert, analysed it, so in truth it is their interpretation of what happened at the site, until a new theory comes up I'm sticking with that one......
