I guess we know that the monuments that are left performed more than simple functions.
I'm reluctant to use words like "ritual" because they're meaningless, but I think it's pretty clear that the communal tombs of the Neolithic were more than simple repositories of bodies; similarly the upland cairns of the Bronze Age are located in ways that are self-evidently more than simply a convenient place to bury someone important; and stone circles have so many possibilities that we could be here all night. Even "hillforts" is overly simplistic, and in many cases overlaid earlier sites anyway.
Not sure where I'm going with this, other than that these sites had a meaning to their builders that goes beyond simple functional necessity.
I share Gladman's views about the placement of monuments being absolutely fundamental. What you can see from them, where you can see them from, how they appear (or disappear) when approaching on foot from other points in the surrounding landscape, how they relate to natural features such as watercourses and rocky outcrops, all these things have the ability to make our "modern" brains stop and wonder, so they must have done the same to the builders and the people who lived in those communities.
But who knows how widely the "secrets" were shared - did a priesthood jealously guard the mysteries, or did everyone in the community have a share understanding of the purposes of these sites? We'll never know that.
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