Sky Burrial
One interesting hypothesis at the moment is that there were lots of wooden platforms for sky burials at that time (see Time Team). Since sky burial is actually the preferred method of exposing the body (e.g. in Tibet) and that the ancients had pan-world religions, it is quite clear that offerings to the gods of Shangri-La were important. However as pointed out, wood rots quickly in the dry English summers; so the ancients decided to build the platforms in stone.
Lugging such brutish lumps of rock across the countryside is obviously not for the faint-hearted; as a result a lot of workers found themselves passing on as offerings to their production process.
In pre-islamic countries, many conical dry stone towers were built for a burial ritual. The body would pass into the tower, and the priests would walk up the stairs, to lay the body out for sky burial. There are still ruins of these towers around, but the good old sea faring Picts and early Scots got to hear about it; and decided to build themselves Brochs as it was significantly easier than lumping great boulders and menhirs around (Oberlix was only in France you know) . Hence the Brits got Stone Henge; and the scots got more magnificent towers.
It just goes to show - that sometimes a good story has hidden truths!
Biting the hand that feeds IT
