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For reference please see: Wessex Archaeology's page on the Allasdale Dunes excavation ; the Modern Antiquarian's page on Castlerigg, (which includes plans) ;  This site's page on Castlerigg, (which includes a panorama) ; and Circles of Stone, a book by Max Milligan and Aubrey Burl .

Cist Grave 103, bound by Stone Setting 104, (shown on the first page of the Wessex report and in the figures and plates), is a flattened oval similar in shape to Castlerigg stone ring . Orientation is also similar: both have their long axes to the north ;  though reflected, with the grave's bearing somewhat east of north, and Castlerigg's bearing somewhat west . Similarity continues in looking at their flatter eastern sides : Off center to the south from Castlerigg's, a noted 'low rectangular enclosure' projects at a slight angle into the ring space ; (an 1882 excavation found only charcoal) . In Grave 103, (setting 104), more or less on center or slightly north, a single low stone projects into the space at a similar angle.

Though Castlerigg is some 1500 years older, and stands at a distance from this Western Isles site, i feel that the remote and rugged Barra would be a logical place to find use of what may have been an earlier lake-district symbol ; noting that:

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Branigan (2007, 19) states that ‘referring to the period from around 2000BC to about 500BC as the Bronze Age is, in the case of Barra, optimistic if not positively misleading.  The totality of bronzework from this period so far discovered in these southern islands is half a small cloak fastener’.

Source: Wessex Archaeology report, page 2

I suggest these were seen as hearths.

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Here is an example of an African hut with a shape similar to Castlerigg and the Barra grave :

http://en.wikipedia....Himba_0712a.jpg

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Having searched flickr for more photos to establish a basis for comparison, i find a variety of styles of which the one in the linked photo from the previous post is a stand-out, (though maybe not singular), example . I find myself curious about two things :

First is the off-round shape painted in white, (a color of apparent symbolic importance in much of traditional Africa), on the hut's wall . It seems to be both the shape of the hut and a fairly good representation of the overall shape of the Barra grave, Castlerigg, and Long Meg's Daughters . Its presence seems to add symbolic meaning, (and this is the only hut i've seen it on) . Together these indicate that this particular style of hut may have a special purpose within their culture . One woman, (with a rather guarded expression), stands in the doorway, and another is visible within in the enlarged version . Their presence indicates that this was not a male-only domain ; and i imagine it might have involved pregnancy, childbirth or a rite of passage .

Secondly, there is a ramp of earth leading to the door-opening, which appears to be at a slight angle to it, recalling but inverting the enclosure within Castlerigg and the extra stone in the Barra grave .

I suggest that these British sites may draw upon a similar tradition intended to bring a similar, (but some sense inverted), magic to the dead .




Please see also the other photo of Himba dwellings from the Wikipedia page : http://en.wikipedia....mba_village.jpg

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Now that i am aware of a hut quite close to the Urkultur which's floor-plan resembles the rings mentioned above and the grave, its connection to the immediately-just risen sun seems less probable than to a symbolic dwelling, (perhaps) for some rite of passage into the afterlife . With this, comes a de-emphasis, (though not necessarily dismissal), of the possible role of excarnation here, and i think a separate thread on the subject would be better.

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Other flattened circles i have found plans for are as follows, (from Prof. Thom's book Megalithic Sites in Britain) :

Rough Tor
Dinnever Hill
Burnmoor E
Cambret Moor
Black Marsh
Bar Brook
Thieves, (henge)
Aviemore
Tursachan Callanish, (a complicated site)

With the (slightly) possible exception of the last, none of these appear to have rectangular settings of stones either within them or immediately nearby . Thus if that of Castlerigg represented an inverted entry ramp, and if the other rings continued to represent ceremonial huts, this aspect must have been dropped or shifted to a less fixed medium early on . This complicates, but does not rule out, its reappearance as the extra stone in the Barra grave .

It is also noteworthy that the North Uist site Leacach an Tigh Chloiche contains more in the way of rectangular boxes of stones, (4 or 5 by my count), than clear evidence of a ring . This raises the possibility that the rectangular stone setting was either a Hebridean innovation, or one which took root there . The former seems somewhat unlikely, but cannot be ruled out if the time held a sufficiently competent seafaring culture, and if so, their meaning is the more obscure . In any case, the way it is used at the Uist site indicates it could at the least be separated from any interpretation as an inverted entry ramp to a ring as symbolic hut .