Cursus

Archaeologists from Glasgow University co-led by Dr Kenneth Brophy and local volunteers began excavating at the site in August.

[7] It has been conjectured that they were used in rituals connected with ancestor veneration, that they follow astronomical alignments or that they served as buffer zones between ceremonial and occupation landscapes.

Finds of arrowheads at the terminal ends suggest archery and hunting were important to the builders and that the length of the cursus may have reflected its use as a proving ground for young men involving a journey to adulthood.

The Dorset Cursus, the longest known example, crosses a river and three valleys along its course across Cranborne Chase and is close to the henge monuments at Knowlton.

The present-day Tynwald day ceremony on the Isle of Man involves the procession of parliament along a cursus-like structure, which is sometimes suggested[by whom?]

Numerous examples of cursus are known and the discipline of aerial archaeology is the most effective method of identifying such large features following thousands of years of weathering and plough damage.