Re: For Ceremonial purposes? | Forum — The Modern Antiquarian

thesweetcheat wrote:

tiompan wrote:

There are enough examples to show that avoidance of circularity was important . I don't see how that equates with anything astro though .

Fair enough. I had always thought that the layout (and grading of stones) might have been due to tracking the position of the sun or moon at different times of the year, using different stones in the circle as a foresight, with a fixed backsight. I assume from your comment that this isn't the case.

Why do you think the builders avoided circularity?

Often the direction of grading height (there's also grading of spacing too ) is towards the SW or rough solstice position .The problem in dealing with individual stones to stone alignments within the circle is that the variables are huge and for every positive there would be a far greater number of negatives ,unless there was something to suggest that a particular pair clesrly stood out from the others or there was an outlier .

Dunno ,they do the same in rock art , some pretty circular rings then others are more oval ,others have almost straight edges like Avebury ,it's lack of skill ,it's clearly avoiding the rigid symmetry/circularity .