FourWinds wrote:
Irish ones are usualy discovered these days when a tractor wheel disappears into one. They don't seem to have been filled in when they went out of disuse. Many I've been to see have been filled in in living memory to stop cattle falling into them. Quite sad really, when a good fence would have sufficed.
Here's the link for the Armit paper . It only really applies to those of "southern pictland" , and when you consider the numbers involved , 200 at least in that area , it is quite selective . Those that have been excavated didn't all exhibit the same "rituals" .The 'ritual' abandonment of Scottish ones is rather odd and interested.
http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/adsdata/PSAS_2002/pdf/vol_129/129_577_596.pdf