Archaeoastronomy in the British Isles - The Stones and the Stars: Building Scotland's Newest Megalith - page 46

4. Archaeoastronomy
in the British Isles
It was a black day for British archaeology when I was shown
these things.
- Dr. Euan MacKie, describing his introduction to Neolithic
stone rings on Machrie Moor [ 1 ] .
If the Thoms' and MacKie's work of the 1960s and 1970s is to be
believed, for at least 2,000 years, and ending more than 3,000 years
ago, the British Isles supported one of the most advanced 'colleges'
of astronomers in the ancient world. Their people built stone monu-
ments in France and Spain, and in Scandinavia, and their influence is
found in the Mediterranean, leading to arguments about where and
how they interacted with other seafaring cultures such as the Mino-
ans. Astronomical alignments were built into their tombs in Ireland,
but it's in Brittany, on the English and Scottish mainland, and in the
western and northern isles, that their standing stones and circles have
the characteristics of observatories.
Almost certainly their interest in the movements of the Sun
and Moon was prompted by navigation and by agriculture, and it
is hard to imagine that key events such as the solstices would not
have been marked by religious rituals. But since no literature has
come down to us, and there was no explicit carving on the stones,
only the pure astronomy underlying the layout of the sites is still
accessible.
Since they did not build in brick, and did not practice met-
alworking until late in their history, the megalith builders had
to reduce positional astronomy to precise observation of horizon
events, and these were marked with stones. After surveying more
than 500 ancient sites, Alexander Thom published a histogram
(Fig. 4.1 ), showing the measured alignments of the ancient sites in
relation to the movements of the Sun, Moon and bright stars, and