Layout and Location - The Stones and the Stars: Building Scotland's Newest Megalith - page 129

west of south - not nearly enough, however, to point to moonset
at further south. It reminded Mann of the Bluestone horseshoe at
Stonehenge, although that's oriented to midsummer sunrise. “At
its western side the horseshoe structure has been pressed inward by
storm action, indicating that the upright posts were once lintelled”
- in other words, like Stonehenge III, which numerous experts have
said appears to have been built from a wooden model.
Around this real “mini Stonehenge” there was a double cres-
cent of postholes, this time oriented slightly east of south - but
again, not enough for its axis to be pointed to major standstill
moonrise. It's tempting to suggest that the crescent and horse-
shoe were oriented to the rising and setting respectively of some
bright southern star, but the entrances are of course much too
wide for any precise identification to be made. But it's a red her-
ring in any case because unless the observer stood on or in the
“altar,” it certainly wasn't for the midsummer sunset alignment.
Although it's impossible to prove, it seems reasonable to suggest
that the gaps are relatively so wide, compared with the Stone-
henge Avenue, in order to allow the major standstill moonrise
and moonset in the south to be seen from inside the linteled
horseshoe beside the altar (Fig. 5.9 ) .
Now we come to an interesting point of interpretation. Mann
maintained that the double ring of posts, and the many other similar
structures outside it, had enclosed earthen banks, which were either
preserved or recreated in the reconstruction for the benefit of the vis-
itors to the site. This is very different from MacKie's interpretation
of the concentric patterns of postholes at the wooden henges, that
they were holding up a conical roof. In support of his contention,
Mann declared that late in 1938 a virtually identical layout of banks
had been found on unploughed land at Formakin in Renfrewshire.
The Clydebank “temple” was not strictly a henge because it
had a central feature, but that's a modern distinction, and there's
no guarantee that the megalith builders took it for an actual rule.
Dividing up the interior by earth walls into little “rooms” would
seem to support MacKie's contention that Skara Brae is a stone
version of Neolithic astronomers' communal dwellings, but
there is one slight problem. The astronomical alignments so far
suggested do require one to be able to see out, presumably over
the outer banks! Intuitively one feels that they should have been