Consider this article:

“Spectacular Images Reveal Mysterious Stone Structures in Saudi Arabia”

It’s on the Ancient Origins website, which compiles and presents a lot of fascinating stuff, but which also has many annoying ads. Sorry about that!

So, to answer my own question, I think that many of these structures could have just been houses. Particularly when we get circular or triangular structures facing or intersecting each other, they don’t look so different to me than the pit houses and kivas of Mesa Verde. The only difference would be that they are much older.

Consider: Saudi Arabia was once much more verdant than today (as was Egypt, evidenced by the erosion channels on the Sphinx). These structures seem to be very old (evidenced by the fact that some of them have been partially covered with lava flows). They could be habitations dating back to a time when the area was actually rainy (immediately post-Flood?). The stone walls, now fallen, could have been topped with domed or conical roofs made of a more perishable material.

“But they think the cairns in them contain burials!” True. It’s interesting that they only think this. Apparently, they haven’t been allowed to show up in person so as to excavate/investigate. These are sites I’d like to visit … except, of course, I’d rather the demons didn’t get me. Anyway … if the cairns do turn out to be burial mounds and not something more prosaic like ovens, even that wouldn’t be completely unprecedented. It might seem a little odd to have Grandpa buried right there in your family housing complex, but it has been done before, at least with ossuaries (bone boxes). The cairn would become a sort of ancestral shrine. It’s not unheard of in human history.