Alignment

It feels like a long time since I was having fun on Arran; in reality it's only a few weeks. Archaeologists have just announced the discovery of something called a 'cursus' on the south west coast of the island. Unlucky us not to know about it when, at one point, we must have been within 100 metres. A cursus is an earthwork - banks, ditches, oak posts - built by Neolithic people, Scotland's 'first farmers' - between 50 and 60 centuries ago. They are elongated oblongs that might be anything from 50m to 10km long (the Arran one is 1.1km), and up to 100m wide. The central area seems to have been clear of any permanent constructions or obstacles. I read that there is one at Stonehenge, and over 65 others in UK, though it's the first time I've heard of them 

Beyond that - reading between the lines - it seems to me that little is known and everything is speculation and storytelling. How could it be otherwise? Across those vast expanses of time, how can we begin to guess what was in the minds of the people who expended unimaginable quantities of time and labour (Their own? Captives? Slaves? Pilgrims?) to construct these things?

So, take your pick: sites for ritual or ancestor worship; alignment with astrological phenomena; marking an area for ceremonial, separate from living areas and farming land; arenas for competition (the 18th century researcher who called them 'cursuses' had in mind a chariot-racing 'circus'); archery ranges; sites for initiation into adulthood; parade grounds; somehow connected to other monumental structures (the Arran one is close to a stone circle - which is a later construction, but might have succeeded an earlier monument on the site) - pehaps a 'grand entrance' to impress visitors. There are more: some function linked to water - refuge from floods, or water-filled ditches as a spectacle; animal traps (first, catch your auroch?); or simply something to please the gods. The list is probably not closed

The purpose of a brewery is very clear, but there are moments when it can be used for alignment