Secondly, we want to know whether they actually did it: placed, aligned, etc. The idea being that a demonstrated placement, orientation, etc. proves the significance, and thus tells us somewhat of their beliefs. You do see the circularity here? That the view of the hilltop is cited as evidence that the view was important? What, in this one instance, eliminates the much higher probablity that the tiny little easily obscured "view" was pure coincidence? Not a damn thing.

To return to my modern example, and compare it to Fourwinds', what if we looked at all the houses sold last decade and saw that a large majority had "views"? Would that be proof views were a MAJOR CONCERN of highend housebuyers? Not at all. It's entirely possible that the only land suitable for expensive houses is that which has a view. Perhaps soil drainage is only good on hillsides that coincidentally have views, and that's what causes those houses to sell best. We would have to compare all places with views, and demonstrate that no other living-suitable characteristics (drainage, distance from transportation, acceptable amount of land, cell phone reception, who the heck knows what) determined the hot sellers. If ANY, or even a particular COMBINATION, of some other identifiable characteristic of houses was as prevalent even among those with views, we have no PROOF that views were important. "Nice view, but will my mobile work?"

And remember, I've chosen ONE type of landscape feature, and one that we understand to be of some concern to at least some people, as an example.

So, what WOULD be good evidence that the hengers and megalithers were on about the landscape? The Eternal cites a possible methodology: compare the shapes of the site to the shapes of the landscape. I bet he's hard pressed to find another example than Castlerigg. And if there are one or three examples out of thousands, then it's going to be difficult for TE's methodology to make the point that landscape had much meaning for the megalithic culture overall. For the Castleriggers, maybe, but what significance? Perhaps it was a purely aesthetic decision to match stones to horizon.

As in my modern example, we have to eliminate the variables and boil it down to "landscape features" that PRIMARILY determine the placements, orientations or etc. of (at least some category or categories of) sites. The only way to do this is to 1, show that some aspect of the lanscape is apparent or emphasized at a majority of sites (analagous to modern houses having a view) and 2, show that NO OTHER concerns could reasonably account for the "landscape" features of the sites being what they are.

In order to satisfy these two conditions, I proposed a plan of analysis. It ain't gonna happen, folks. Or, well, from our experience and reading, I'd be very deeply surprised if it did. But I DO love surprises!