8th July 2013, 08:13 PM
:face-topic: If they were dead keen on lining things up on e.g. a star, wouldn't they have put more effort on alignments? As has been pointed out above, its hardly difficult laying out a straight line with 3 sticks. There are an awful lot of stars visible up there on a clear night, even with modern light pollution, so wiggly lines would have led to an awful lot of misdirected star-worship or whatever. They could get it right when it mattered (e.g. Newgrange works), but in most cases I think we're just looking for archaeoastronomy where it never existed. Seem to recall an article where the lines of (unexcavated) AP postholes on the end of the Thornborough double postpit alignment were reconstructed as some arrangement of little fences that served some astronomical purpose (was left none the wiser as to how exactly) when they could just as easily be some sort of building (for which there's an unpublished parallel). Where I've looked into it double pit/post rows often seem to be running from monument (often henge) axes (as at Thornbrough) and aiming for significant topograhic points on the horizon rather than anything astronomical (not got a map handy so can't suggest what Thornborough could be aimed at, but theres some useful hills not too far in that direction). Several people have suggested in print that double-entrance henges are positioned to incorporate existing routeways, nothing too astronomical about that?