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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2011
Abstract. This paper examines some of the problems of the archaeological evidence from sites for which astronomical interpretations have been proposed; these include problems of interpretation caused by the use of many prehistoric sites over a long period of time, and difficulties raised by the absence of a firm chronological frame-work. The absence of detailed gazetteers for many of the types of site under discussion is also stressed. A number of excavations are used to contrast the material available to the prehistorian and to the astronomer.
Introduction
The astronomical interpretation of stone circles and standing stones has a long history; in the late seventeenth century, for example, Martin Martin, writing about the Ring of Brodgar and the Stones of Stenness in Orkney, records that ‘Several of the Inhabitants have a Tradition that the Sun was worshipped in the larger, and the Moon in the lesser Circle’ (1716, 365). In recent years a scientific basis for interpretation of the archaeological evidence in astronomical terms has been proposed by Alexander Thom (Thom, A. 1967; 1971; Thom & Thom 1978). In 1965 he began his introduction to megalithic astronomy: ‘Much has been written for and against the astronomical significance of the stone circles, stone alignments, etc., which are scattered throughout these islands and indeed much further afield. There is, however, universal agreement that the erectors, herein called for convenience Megalithic man, marked the rising and setting points of the solsticial Sun’ (Thom, A. 1965, 1).
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