Sir

I am surprised at the suggestion by Elizabeth Aveling that the Coupland enclosure, Milfield, was a winter kraal for cattle, as that does not fit with the given facts (Nature 387, 553—554; 1997).

Aveling supports Waddingtons interpretation that it was used to winter cattle. Yet the fact that a double-ditched linear feature bisects the enclosure indicates that cattle passed through it, not into it; the double-ditched feature is designed to keep them out of the two opposing cords.

The idea of a kraal raises ancillary questions anyway — how many grazing cattle could this relatively small ‘field’ support, or did the early Neolithic undertake silage production? Is a major earthwork embankment a reasonable way for our ancestors to contain cattle, or is it proposed that the embankment was defence against human marauders?

The real answer, I suggest, lies in the almost throwaway line that it was perhaps a sacred site.

I suggest that the animals were driven through the henge to be blessed, so that the all-powerful god(s) would protect the herd from pestilence and predators and ensure fertility. The opposing cords of the circle probably contained religious structure, symbols, sacred relics and the tribe priests. The nearby ford may also have played its part in these religious rites.