wooden sledges. Before the first one could be moved, though, a road had to be cleared from, what was then, a thick forest. Not an easy job in itself. Especially for a people who probably spent most of their time and energy just fighting for survival. The construction of both Avebury and Stonehenge must have been the work of many generations. Archaeologist Clive Waddington has suggested that the earliest henges, simple ditches with surrounding mounds, my have been stock enclosures for cattle. Remains of fence and gates found at the Coupland Henge, which is more than 800 years older than Stonehenge, support his idea. Waddington thinks when cattle were moved into the enclosure during certain seasons, rituals were performed. As time went on the circles functional aspect faded away and they became purely religious structures. Most of the rings were smaller than Avebury and simpler than Stonehenge. While some of them had astronomical alignments built into their design, many did not. This suggests that their use as observatories may have been a secondary function. Perhaps, for some, Waddington's corrals were the primary function, though, we may never be able to say for sure. As Professor Richard Atkinson, of University College, Cardiff, a researcher at Stonehenge, once said, "You have to settle for the fact that there are large areas of the past we cannot find out about..." ...
