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What constitutes an alignment

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tiompan T
tiompan Mar 26, 2007 15:10:15
Replying to FourWinds

FourWinds wrote:
CianMcLiam wrote:
In Burl's 'Pre-Historic Astronomy and Ritual' and 'The Stone Circles of..' he lays down quite rigid criteria for alignments ie. you must have a man-made backsight AND foresight. He discounts natural foresights such as mountain peaks, valleys etc. because there is no direct evidence of its significance or realisation by the creators of the alignment.
It's always tricky. Burl wrote the above before the current trend in landscape archaeology - I wonder what he thinks now. The above definition would make the Newgrange/Knowth/Dowth alignments just a coincidence for a start, unless you say the passage entrance is the foresite and the rear of the chamber is the backsite. Given this mechanism the only alignments that couldn't be confirmed would be from standing stones.

The Drombeg alignment rises over the knoll in front of it. Again, you'd have to use the portal stones as the foresight and the axial stone as the backsight to make it fit with his definition. As they're in the same structure and not separated by a significant distance the alignment is open to interpretation by Burl's rule as stated above.

CianMcLiam wrote:
Not everyone is as strict though!
:-)
In many respects comtemporary archaeoastronomy is less likely to consider many of the alignments from the past , despite the landscape input. Bradley Schaefer gave an address in 2004 that seems reasonable and has been generally accepted , the main thrust being "intent by design " should be manifest . I don't have a url but a google might find it . Post Ruggles many of the Thom and Burl astro alignments have been binned . Of course a line of stones pointing in any direction is still an alignment e.g. Carnac but even they are squint .

F FourWinds
FourWinds Mar 26, 2007 15:37:54
Replying to tiompan

tiompan wrote:
Post Ruggles many of the Thom and Burl astro alignments have been binned .
But then who's to say Ruggles is correct? Just because it's the currently accepted theory and approach doesn't mean it's the right one. I'm not saying he's wrong, by the way, just pointing out that the flavour of the month isn't necessarily correct. The ideas it replaced could still be valid even though they're not in vogue.