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The Greater Stonehenge Cursus – the Long View

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 March 2013

Roy Loveday
Roy Loveday*
Affiliation:
School of Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Leicester, Leicester LE1 7RH
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Abstract

The WSW–ENE alignment of the Greater Stonehenge Cursus appears to have been prefigured by the line of Mesolithic post-holes found in the Stonehenge car park. If this is not a coincidence, a means of transmission must be hypothesised since the posts could not have survived the 4000 years separation. The fact that a significant number of henges in western lowland Britain adopt the same broad alignment hints at a very long-lived mental template. That, it is argued, is likely to have been celestially triggered and tied to seasonal rhythms. Simple luni-solar calculation (akin to that determining events as disparate as the ancient Olympic festival and present day Easter) rather than precisely measureable astronomical events, would create such azimuth clustering. The focus on April sunrises or October sunsets argues for an association with the pastoral cycle.

Type
Shorter contribution
Information
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society , Volume 78 , 2012 , pp. 341 - 350
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 2012

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References

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