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German 'Stonehenge' Marks Oldest Observatory


Here's an interesting article by Madhusree Mukerjee, published on ScientificAmerican.com. This site has a very draconian copyright statement, so I've paraphrased a bit of text as a taster:

The Goseck Circles are the remains of a henge-like monument, visible only as crop mark in a field, near the town of Goseck in Germany. Archaeologists published their first findings in August having first discovered the site from the air.

The Goseck Circles are thought to be Neolithic, dating back to 4900 BCE, taking the form of four concentric circles, a mound (or bank?), a ditch and two wooden palisades. Three palisade gates faced north, southwest and southeast. The article describes an alignment with the Winter Solstice sunrise between the centre of the circles and the southern gate.

Last year an etched disk known as the Nebra disk was found 25km from the circles, reinforcing the theory that the site may have been used as a very early observatory.
Scientific American: Circles for Space [ ARCHAEO-ASTRONOMY ]
German "Stonehenge" marks oldest observatory
Kammer Posted by Kammer
10th December 2003ce
Edited 10th December 2003ce

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