I believe that man has observed alignment since..well, the year dot.
For roughly half of his/her life man is surrounded by alignments....the night sky. I believe a lot of what we see on the ground may be a reflection of what our ancestors saw in the night sky. If you want to construct a mythology to perpetuate your oral histories then the night sky is your canvas.
On a local level, there quite a few groups of barrows on the North York Moors know as 'the Three Howes' I've counted 7 so far then we also have the three henges of thornborough, the three devils arrows. I think that they may be a reflection of one of the dominant constellations of the northern skies..Orion or more specifically Orions Belt. I need to look more closely at this but that is my starting point.