Recent authoritative work by Ruggles on whether there were significant astronomical and calendrical alignments built into Stonehenge in the third millennium BCE has concluded that the evidence for accurate alignments is minimal and that there is none for sophisticated astronomical practices, nor for any kind of calendar. Whether sophisticated geometry was used in designing the site is not discussed. I will review the relevant evidence – previously discussed by Hawkins, Thom and Atkinson – in the light of both Atkinson’s accurate on-site surveys in 1978 and Hawkins’ photogrammetric survey. It will be argued that these data allow us to infer that important lunar and solar alignments were built into the rectangular formation of the Station Stones, and into the main axis of the site. Moreover, geometrical constructions – and the use of at least one standard length unit – have been postulated for the Station Stones and the sarsen circle these ideas too are investigated. It seems that these two aspects of
prehistoric intellectual skills – astronomy and the calendar, and geometry – are
closely interwoven at this site, and that this emerging picture has broad implications for our understanding of Neolithic society.
This paper enquires whether Stonehenge – one of the most famous prehistoric sacred sites in Europe – was built in a more sophisticated way, and for more sophisticated purposes, than those usually suggested in archaeological textbooks. Was it laid out according to advanced geometrical principles and with the aid of skilled surveying? Were sight lines built into it which pointed at the risings and settings of the sun and moon at important stages in their calendars? Or is it a primitive structure remarkable mainly for the size and weight of its component standing stones, their skilful dressing and shaping, and for the ingenuity and effort which must have been involved in raising them into their final positions?
These questions are seldom asked in modern British archaeology.
http://www.cultureandcosmos.org/pdfs/16/MacKie_INSAPVII_Stonehenge.pdf
Source: Culture and Cosmos Vol 16 (2012) - special issue containing forty papers from the Seventh Conference on the Inspiration of Astronomical Phenomena (INSAPVII) held at the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution, Bath, 24-29 October 2010.
http://www.cultureandcosmos.org/issues/vol16.php
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