This book links quantifiable cattle movement to mainstream archaeological research to highlight that areas of pasture affected by winter flooding correlate with the precise alignment and location of cursus monument sites. This suggests that cursus monuments commenced life as some form of cattle management system.

This book links cattle to the construction of cursus monument sites. It suggests that these monuments commenced life as a form of cattle management prior to their possible ritual importance. As such it is an original and important contribution to the cursus monument ‹enigma› debate. Previous cursus monument studies have tended to focus on the construction or post-construction phases of the monument rather than the practical reasons communities decided to locate and align these monuments where they did.