I have speculated for a long time on the relationship of tombs to streams and that most tombs in Ireland occur 'near' to streams & rivers and more particularly the coastal areas.
It is often commented upon that there is very little in the way of remains in the tombs and so they must have been for the important people only. Bullshit! It is in the tombs that are away from rivers that large quantities of burial deposits are found (see Fourknocks & Mound Of The Hostages). The other have little because ( I think) that when a person died the ceremony had two or three stages.
1) cremation or de-fleshing
2) being put in th etomb
3) being removed from the tomb and placed in the water to return to the sea from whence it came.
All three stages could have been at specific times of year. All the dead were saved up either being cremated or defleshed over the course of the year. Then in one ceremony last years dead were removed from the tomb and returned to Nature (or even used in the fields as fertilizer!) and the next batch were enclosed for a year within the tomb to await being removed next year.
Of course this is all personal speculation and probably, like most other such speculation, complete bollocks :-)
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