Archaeoastronomy in the British Isles - The Stones and the Stars: Building Scotland's Newest Megalith - page 87

F IG . 4.25 Standing stone, erected 1940, marking the safe route between
Colonsay and Oronsay (Photo by author, 1978)
180°, while the standing stone has an apparent diameter of about
half a degree. The odds that it marks the safe crossing are there-
fore one in 360 - if you assume that the position of the stone is
random . If you do assume that, and don't drive towards it, you are
quite likely to sink. It is in fact better to assume that the stone is
there for a purpose; so, too, with Thom's long sight-lines.
In their 'Conclusions' to Megalithic Remains in Britain and
Brittany , the Thoms wrote, “The main lunar observatories from
the point of view of completeness are Brodgar, Stonehenge, Cal-
lanish, and Temple Wood. But there are many other places where
we find indications of accurate lunar or solar lines. In Megalithic
Lunar Observatories we listed 25 under the title 'observing sites.'
While some of these may be spurious, it is likely that there are
many more scattered throughout the area. Why were there so
many? We have seen the midsummer fires burning on the hill-tops
in Austria, and in Scotland there were until recently the Beltane
fires [and midsummer fairs - see Chap. 5 ]. These are all probably
the remains of a method of synchronizing the calendar in differ-
ent parts of the Country in Megalithic times. Why then did every
small community have its own observatory? [ 9 ]”
One reason may have been for recruitment. The Scalisaig
standing stone marks only midwinter sunset; but whatever cer-