Archaeoastronomy in the British Isles - The Stones and the Stars: Building Scotland's Newest Megalith - page 65

F IG . 4.16 Stonehenge today. Vistamorph TM (Photo by Chris O'Kane)
At least 80 stone circles were built in Ireland between 2500
and 2000 b.c. Many of them had the same form as the “recumbent
circles” of Aberdeenshire, with stones graded in size away from
a giant stone lying on its long side. Burl has demonstrated that
at least some of these may have been oriented so that the setting
Moon would seem to float along the top of the flat stone at key
times. The large stone was always placed in the south/southwest
sector of the circles. Such a construction is not particularly accu-
rate or scientific, but it does provide a basis for a growing body of
lore on which an observational program could be built.
The evidence for an observing program is found particularly in
Argyllshire, in the Western Isles, and in the Orkneys. The further
north the observer is located, the more the events on the horizon
will be spread out, so that subtle effects become more obvious -
once the technique of accurate observation had been developed.
To show how that may have happened, we have to go back to our
imaginary observer, who had built his stone circle in honor of the
Sun or sky-god but came as a result to appreciate the significance
of the major and minor lunar standstills.
Such a discovery, painstakingly reached over a lifetime (more
probably, several lifetimes) of observation, is well worth record-
ing for posterity. In an age without writing, putting up a stone as
a marker is the obvious way to leave a permanent record. For the
satisfaction of the individual or group - whether or not sublimated
as the ascendancy of the sky-gods over the earlier cult of the dead
- the marker should be as precise as possible.
But now the limitations of the circular observatory become
apparent. The full Moon, huge as it looks near the horizon, has a