The sun and stars may have served as critical references for a startlingly diverse range of ancient builders who constructed chambers to hold the dead and other religious shrines.

The orientation of thousands of Neolithic tombs erected across Europe and Africa around 10,000 B.C. were apparently built to face the rising sun, securing the sun’s importance in various human cultures across three countries, two continents and the Mediterranean islands, according to one astronomy historian

space.com/scienceastronomy/ancient_tombs_040405.html