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Astronomical influences on prehistoric ritual architecture in North-Western Europe: The case of the stone rows
Vol. 39, pp. 517-528, 1995 Copyright @ 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in Great Britain. All rights reserved 0083-6656195 $29.00
Vistas in Astronomy
0083-6656(95)00020-8
Astronomical Influences on Prehistoric Ritual Architecture in North-Western Europe: The Case of the Stone Rows C. L. N. Ruggles * and H. A. W. Burl t * School of Archaeological Studies, University of Leicester, Leicester LEl 7RH, U.K. t 2 Woodland Road, Northfield, Birmingham B31 2HS, U.K.
1. INTRODUCTION Despite strong popular belief, there is no evidence that Stonehenge incorporated a great many precise astronomical alignments, and no reason to suppose that, at any stage, the site functioned as an astronomical observatory, at least in any sense that would be meaningful to a modern astronomer (Atkinson, 1966; Burl, 1981a; Heggie, 198 1, pp. 195-206; Ruggles, 198 la). Yet there is evidence that astronomical symbolism was incorporated into a range of prehistoric ritual monuments built in north-western Europe by some of the earliest farmers, from the 5th millennium BC through to Bronze Age times some 3000 years later (Burl, 1983; Ruggles and Whittle, 198 1; Ruggles, 1984a,b). The challenge for the modern investigator is to separate what ancient people might have done from what they were actually motivated to do - in other words, to interpret what remains to us in the archaeological record in a way that is, as far as possible, unclouded by ethnocentrism, that is the tendency to see ourselves in the past (Hawkes, 1966). In the case of these monuments, this must be done in the absence of independent evidence from historical documents, literature, myth (most myth and legend associated with these sites is very modem in origin by comparison with the age of the sites) - indeed, of any direct evidence apart from the archaeological record itself. We can be sure that the actions of prehistoric people were very strongly dependent upon their perceptions of the world, expressed in systems of belief and ritual, and that celestial phenomena were an integral part of this perception (Ruggles and Saunders, 1993). The use of astronomical phenomena in a given situation depended upon a range of cultural parameters, many of which we can only guess at through analogy, and many of which will always remain inaccessible to us. One thing we can do, however, is to look for repeated trends within the archaeological record, using them to suggest general principles that influenced people’s actions within certain areas at certain times. The clearest evidence for ritual astronomy comes from groups of sites, similar in form and confined to certain geographical areas (Burl, 1981b; Ruggles, 1982a).
2. THE SHORT STONE ROWS OF THE BRITISH ISLES Such a group is the short stone rows, curious linear arrangements of 2-6 standing stones found mainly in Scotland, Ireland, and north-western France (Burl, 1993). These short rows 517
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C. L. It? Ruggles and H. A. W Burl
of standing stones were erected at the end of a long tradition that began around 2800 BC with the construction of long avenues attached to circles, such as the Kennet Avenue at Avebury (Burl, 1979). In south-western Ireland, for example, rows of up to six stones were erected in their hundreds between 1800 and 1200 BC, and there is evidence to suggest that as time went on the rows got ever shorter (quite often being only a pair) and were erected in ever more remote areas towards the west coast (ibid.). There are also concentrations of short stone rows in northern Ireland, in Argyll on the western mainland of Scotland, and on the Isle of Mull, with a scattering on some of the other Hebridean islands. (For distribution maps see Burl, 1993, pp. 148-149, 182; Walsh, 1993.) It seems that these modest sites represent the tail end of a long lasting, and at times highly organised and supported, ritual monumental tradition spanning a period when the nature of society changed a very great deal, especially in those places (such as the Boyne valley, Orkney, Wessex, and southern Brittany) where it became for a long time much more organised and hierarchical. The small stone rows were not domestic sites, nor were they defensive. They do, however, quite often have funerary associations. Certainly, they were quite probably ‘family’ monuments, quite easily erected by a small number of people. It is uncommon to find a stone weighing more than 3 or 4 tons, and such megaliths could quite easily have been set upright by a gang of no more than a score of workers, with families quite possibly combining when a new site was proposed (cf. Ruggles and Burl, 1985 for the Scottish recumbent stone circles). The archaeological evidence, and indeed the statistical evidence, sits uncomfortably with the ‘lunar observatory’ idea espoused by Thorn (1967, 1971). On the archaeological side, the use of monumental stone architecture to express astronomical alignments is itself a strong argument that such alignments were symbolic, rather than intended for any use that would seem to us ‘practical’ (Ruggles, 1996a). On the statistical side, there are problems at various levels with the selection of data (Ruggles, 198 lb, 1982b, 1983). Finally, the argument for high precision astronomical alignments at prehistoric sites also conflicts with recent evidence indicating that day-to-day variations in atmospheric refraction are much greater than was previously thought (Schaefer, 1993a,b). Never investigated by Thorn, the Irish stone rows carry relatively little baggage of overzealous archaeoastronomicai interpretation. However, recent surveys of the sites in south-western Ireland (Ruggles, 1994, 1996b) do indicate possible correlations with astronomical phenomena at a low level of precision, as well as with hill summits on the horizon. Over 80 rows of 36 stones remain today in Counties Cork and Kerry, together with over 100 stone pairs (6 Nuallain, 1988). The orientations of these sites are highly concentrated about NE-SW of 69 rows whose orientations are plotted by 6 Nualliin (ibid.: Fig. 2a), all but 11 fall between 20°/2000 and 75O/255“, and all without exception fall between 350°/1700 and 100°/2800. Of 60 stone pairs, all but two fall between 6O/l86O and 88O/268’ (ibid.: Fig. 2b).
3. NEW DATA FROM THE IRISH SITES Table 1 gives details of the orientations and indicated horizons at those 3-6 stone rows for which survey data have been obtained. The first part of the table contains 4-6 stone rows, and the second part three stone rows. For details of the methodology of data acquisition, and more extensive tables including fuller archaeological and survey notes, see Ruggles (1994, 1996b). For convenience, we refer throughout to the ‘NE’ and ‘SW directions even though the rows in question may actually be oriented NNE-SSW, ENE-WSW, or even N-S or E-W. The actual orientation data are given in the table. Figures 1 and 2 present the data as a cumulative histogram in the manner of Thorn (e.g. 1967, Fig. 8.1), but with Gaussian curves of varying
Astronomical Injluences on Prehistoric Ritual Architecture Table 1. Orientations and indicated horizons at 3- to 6-stone rows in south-western Ireland. Column headings: (I) County (Co=CorWKe=Kerry); (2) Catalogue no. in 6 Nuallain (1988); (3) Site name; (4) Irish National Grid reference; (5) No. of stones still standing; (6) No. of stones remaining (standing or prostrate); (7) Estimate of original no. of stones in row; (8) Mean axis, quoted to the nearest degree; (9) “Preferred direction” estimated from stone height gradation; (10) Minimum Declination (“NE” indication), quoted to the nearest 0.2 degrees; (11) Maximum Declination (“NE” indication), quoted to the nearest 0.2 degrees; (I 2) Minimum Declination (‘SW” indication), quoted to the nearest 0.2 degrees; (13) Maximum Declination (“SW” indication), quoted to the nearest 0.2 degrees.
LCo I8
Ke U3 Co 28 Ke U4 Ke 168 Co I36
ITullig
Dromkeam Dromcarra North Eightemua Garrough Castlenalacht
t-1
27 Cloonshear Beg 29 Rosanakilla 1Co I 30 I Canrooska currakeal Cashelkeelty
I w31
V54 W278681 15 15 I 5 ] 44-224 I --I +25.41+28.21 V512646 14 14 14 147-227 12271+24.61+26.21 -25.81 -24.0
519
520
C. L. h! Ruggles and H. A. W Burl
Fig. 1. South-west Irish 4- to 6-stone rows: line data.
Fig. 2. South-west Irish 3- to 6-stone rows: line data.
width. The area under each curve is 1.0 and the standard deviation has been taken as half the difference between the maximum and minimum declinations quoted in the table. A cut-off has been imposed below -37O.O. Where a line is in the apparent direction of the indication (as judged by the gradation in stone height and size) it is shaded dark. Where the apparent direction of indication is unknown or uncertain the line is given light shading. Lines opposite to the apparent direction of indication are left white. Peaks are evident at about -29O and +29O, within about a degree of the major lunar standstills at -3OO.O and +2E”.2. However, in the southern case the peak is within the lunar limit whereas in the northern case it is beyond it. This distribution appears significantly different from what would be expected by chance (see Ruggles, 1984a for details of Monte Carlo methods to establish this formally) but, as it stands, is not greatly enlightening. A clearer trend becomes evident when an attempt is made to take into account the presence on the horizon of prominent hills. Recent work on both the recumbent stone circles of eastern Scotland (Ruggles and Burl, 1985) and the stone rows on northern Mull (Ruggles and Martlew, 1992) suggests that prominent hilltops may be an important factor in the symbolism of these sites. They do not occur by any means at every site (see Ruggles, 1994, 1996b), but where they do they may give a better idea of the intended indication than the present positions of the stones. Unfortunately it is difficult to give anything but a highly subjective definition of prominence. In order to avoid this we have merely tabulated the point of highest apparent altitude within each horizon range. Where this point is one or other end of the range, i.e. the indication is upon the side of a hill, or the altitude variation within the entire range is very small (smaller than, say, 0.2 degrees), then we consider that no high-point of possible interest exists. The data are presented in Table 2, and displayed in Figs 3 and 4. The standard deviation on each curve is now taken to be a fixed OO.4.The dataset is too small for us to be able to make any definitive statements, although the small accumulation of peaks close to the minor lunar standstill at - 19O.6may be of interest.
Astronomical Influences on Prehistoric Ritual Architecture
Table 2. Highest points in the indicated horizon ranges at 3- to 6-stone rows in southwestern Ireland. Column headings: (1) Catalogue no. in 6 Nuallain (1988); (2) Site name; (3) Direction (“NE”/“SW”); (4) Stone gradation in this direction? (Y/N or - [neither or unknown]); (5) Name of peak; (6) Distance (km); (7) Azimuth of summit, to the nearest 0.1 degrees; (8) Altitude of summit, to the nearest 0.1 degrees; (9) Declination of summit, to the nearest 0.1 degrees.
521
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C. L. h! Ruggies and H. A. l4! Burl
ilu~lllllilllllllllllllilllllllll Declination Fig. 3. South-west Irish 4- to 6-stone rows: peak data
Fig. 4. South-west Irish 3- to 6-stone rows: peak data.
4. COMBINED DATA FROM THE IRISH AND SCOTTISH SITES It is certainly of interest at this stage to attempt to combine the data from the stone rows in south-west Ireland with that from the similar sites in western Scotland. Curiously, no archaeoastronomical investigation has ever been undertaken of the western Scottish stone rows in their entirety and as a group in themselves, although relevant data have often been collected as part of other investigations. In particular, the survey of 300 western Scottish megalithic sites conducted by Ruggles and his colleagues in the 1970s and 1980s (Ruggles, 1984a) contains much relevant information, and this is summarised in Table 3, supplemented by some more recent data for sites in Argyll and Mull. The range of indication here is taken to be the ‘adjacent azimuth range’ defined in Ruggles (1984a, p. 60). The western Scottish sites manifest a generally N-S orientation pattern rather than the generally NE-SW one in the Irish case. Statistical analyses of the western Scottish data as a whole have suggested a pattern of lunar orientation in the southerly direction (ibid., chap. 12) and this has been backed up by more detailed investigations of stone rows in the Kilmartin area of Argyll and northern Mull (Ruggles, 1985). The difference in orientation pattern between the Irish and Scottish stone rows reminds us that we must exercise some caution in combining data from two groups of sites which, although similar in form, may represent traditions separated in time as well as space. Reassuringly, despite the 500 km of sea between them, the short rows of western Scotland and southern Ireland probably shared a common ancestry. For centuries a tradition of setting up lines of standing stones, first in avenues leading to stone circles, then in long single rows had been developing in western Britain, undergoing change, diminishing, and spreading steadily towards the west (Burl, 1993, pp. 147-151). Ultimately the custom reached the two regions under discussion. There is little dating evidence but what there is suggests that the southern Irish sites were constructed around the middle of the Bronze Age and the western Scottish ones possibly even later. Two Irish radiocarbon assays, one from Maughanasilly, a row of five stones in Co. Cork, of 1315+55 bc (Lynch, 1981, p. 71) and another from the three-stone row of Dromatouk, Co. Kerry, of 1380+80 bc (ibid., p. 99) can be calibrated into ‘real’ years of c. 1600 BC and 1675 BC, respectively. While such dates are in close accordance with two calculations of 1640+70 BC and 1580& 100 BC based upon supposed high precision solstitial alignments at
Astronomical Influences on Prehistoric Ritual Architecture
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Table 3. Orientations and indicated horizons at 3- to Wane rows in westernScotland. Columnheadings:(1) Site referenceno. in BAR123; (2) Site name; (3) British National Grid reference; (4) No. of stones still standing; (5) No. of stones remaining (standing or prostrate); (6) Estimate of original no. of stones in row; (7) Mean axis, quoted to the nearest degree; (8) Line no. in BAR123 (northern indication); (9) Minimum Declination (northern indication), quoted to the nearest 0.2 degrees; (10) Maximum Declination (northern indication), quoted to the nearest 0.2 degrees; (11) Line no. in BAR123, or other reference (southern indication) [a. Taken from Ruggles, 1988, Table 9.1; b. Taken from Ruggles and Martlew, 1989; c. Taken from Martlew and Ruggles, 19931;(12) Minimum Declination (southern indication), quoted to the nearest 0.2 degrees; (13) Maximum Declination (southern indication), quoted to the nearest 0.2 degrees.
Ballochroy, a three stone row on the Kintyre peninsula of Argyll (Bailey et al., 1975), the weight of evidence must now be taken as against the idea of Ballochroy as a high precision observatory (Ruggles, 1984b; Schaefer, 1993b), and so this accordance is probably fortuitous. Indeed, dates obtained recently from the two three-stone rows at Ardnacross in Mull suggest a date of construction possibly as late as c. 1000 BC (Martlew and Ruggles, 1996). It could be that the orientation differences between the Irish and Scottish stone rows are attributable to long-held local beliefs that caused people to adapt the design of these novel monuments to their own needs. But was astronomical symbolism an integral part of the underlying stone row tradition that spread to these areas? In an attempt to cast some light upon this question the line data have been combined in Fig. 5, and the peak data in Fig. 6 (the directional information available for the Irish sites has now been suppressed) and the results are striking. Very clear concentrations in declinations become evident when we move from the general orientation data to horizon peaks. The data show that more southerly orientations are generally compensated by higher hori-
C. L. N Ruggles and H. A. W Burl
524
Table 4. Highest points in the indicated horizon ranges at 3- lo S-stone rows in western Scotland. Column headings: (1) Site reference no. in BAR123;(2) Site name;(3) Direction; (4) Highestpoint is in IAR?;(5) Name of peak;(6) Distance(km); (7) Azimuth of summit, to the nearest 0.1 degrees; (8) Altitude of summit, to the nearest 0.1 degrees; (9) Declination of summit, to the nearest 0.1 degrees.
KT5 Escart KTlO BaIIochrov KT27 Clochkeil
SSW N SheirdrimHiil SW Y CaraIsland SW N KnockIavd
9.8 206.9 0.9 -29.6 12.9 222.5 0.1 -250 47.8 226.5 0.4 -23.0
12.0 11.0 10.0 9.0 8.0 7.0 6.0 5.0 4.0 3.0 2.0
1.0 0.0
9 %
4 r
.
Fig. 5. South-west Irish and western Scottish 3- to 6-stone rows: line data
zons, resulting in a much sharper cut-off below -30” than would be expected from a general spread of orientations around north-south. l Furthermore, the distribution of southern declinations in Fig. 6 is highly suggestive of an interest in the Moon. The range between the two standstills (-3OO.O to - 19O.6)represents the range of possible values of the southerly limit of the Moon’s monthly motions at different points in the 18.6 year lunar node cycle. The concentration of declinations around the two limits of the cycle is just what one would expect if sites were aligned, say, upon the midsummer (most southerly) full Moon without regard to the timing within the longer cycle, owing to the sinusoidal motion of the monthly limit between the standstills. Furthermore, a slight displacement towards higher (less negative) declinations 1 This expected distribution is significantly different for the Irish and Scottish sites because of the latitude difference between the two groups. Statistical analyses such as the Monte Carlo simulations in Ruggles (1984a) can take account of the different latitudes of the individual sites within a group.
525
Astronomical Infiuences on Prehistoric Ritual Architecture I I
l+
4.0 --------
‘1
t
I
_
llyttil
---x&-L-i
Fig. 6. South-westIrish and western Scottish 3- to 6-stone rows: peak data.
would be expected whenever the full moon observed occurred more than a few days either side of the actual solstice.
5. STONE ROWS, THE MOON, AND IDEOLOGY These data, then, appear to provide strong support for the conclusion that lunar symbolism was incorporated in a significant proportion, though by no means all, of the south-west Irish and western Scottish stone rows. There is no evidence, however, of the sort of high precision astronomy that has been discussed so much in the past. These, it seems, were symbolic, imprecise alignments much as earlier alignments had been. The burial mounds of long barrows on Salisbury Plain, for example, constantly were laid out to face somewhere in the arc between NNE and SSE where the Moon rose (Burl, 1987, pp. 26-28). Death and the Moon, it seems, went together - but with an accuracy of no more than +2O. Burl (ibid.) argues that the first Stonehenge, in the midst of these barrows, was aligned on the most northerly moonrise. But then came change: in the Early Bronze Age the axis of the earthwork was replanned towards the midsummer sunrise, and later the alignment was reversed towards the midwinter sunset. But throughout these alterations sightlines to the Moon were retained, a persistence manifested in the short rows of western Scotland and south-western Ireland 2000 years after the long barrows. Work is in progress to develop Bayesian hierarchical methods for the statistical analysis of the data presented here and for other similar data on astronomical orientations. However, people do not operate - as we expect of laws of the Universe - in a reliable and consistent way, and we must supplement statistical methods with more interpretative analyses in the light of the archaeological evidence as a whole. It is clear, for example, that many of the stone pairs and even many single aligned slabs in western Scotland follow the trend towards orientation within the limiting lunar range in the south and upon prominent horizon peaks (Ruggles, 1984a, 1985). It is also the case that there are more prominent peaks that do not satisfy the strict criterion for inclusion in this dataset and yet are undoubtedly significant: examples include Ben More, a prominent mountain directly in the direction of the alignment at Glengorm in Mull, but just hidden from the stones by local ground (it is clearly visible 2 or 3 m from the stones; Ruggles and Martlew, 1989). Who are we to say that an ‘observer’ must have stood behind the stones and sighted along them? Could not a symbolic alignment be placed where a collection of people could view moonrise over a sacred mountain whilst all standing in the vicinity of a ceremonial site? Maybe it was even important to ‘hide’ some of the symbolism of the site by placing it so that the alignment upon a sacred mountain was just obscured from the site itself: there is some support for this speculation from the fact that all five stone rows on the most northerly part of Mull are oriented within 20“ of Ben More but positioned so that the mountain can not quite, or only just, be seen from the stones (Ruggles and Martlew, 1992).
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C. L. A? Ruggles and H, A. W Burl
Whatever the status of such speculations, it is becoming increasingly clear that ideological considerations, such as relationships to prominent (sacred?) mountains and significant rising and setting positions of astronomical bodies, were an important factor alongside more practical considerations in the siting and design of ceremonial sites in Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age times in the British Isles. We can ask, for example, whether the sites chosen have greater symbolic potential than nearby alternatives that seem equally plausible on practical grounds (Ruggles et al., 1991) and use GIS techniques (especially the viewshed function) in order to explore the answers (Ruggles et al., 1993; Ruggles and Medyckyj-Scott, 1996). The apparent association between these stone rows and the Moon also leads to a number of more general questions. An obvious one is: why did the Moon have such an influence over the builders of the short stone rows, both in Ireland and Scotland? Did it inspire these monuments or were they just constructed so as to blend in, wherever possible, with a more widespread lunar cult? The association with death already mentioned is repeated in the recumbent stone circles of north-eastern Scotland where the recumbent stone, always laid in line with the southern Moon (Ruggles and Burl, 1985) often had fragments of glistening white quartz strewn around it and around the human cremations at the heart of the ring. Whether quartz was visualised as coming from the Moon itself will never be known but quartz has certainly been found in short rows with lunar associations at sites such as Glengorm and Ardnacross in Mull (Ruggles and Martlew, 1989; Martlew and Ruggles, 1993) and Knocknakilla in Ireland (Gogan, 1931). Amongst the mountains of Connemara several short rows were built entirely of white quartz blocks standing vividly in the landscape. While it is true to say that the cycles of the Moon are one of the most obvious in the sky, and form the basis of many simple calendrical systems (Aveni, 1989), an interest in the horizon rising or setting of the Moon is relatively rare. Why, then might it have been of such importance at the stone rows of the British Isles? It is possible that the high latitude of these sites, especially the Scottish ones, was a significant factor, for here the major standstill Moon is seen to scrape along the northern or southern horizon - a rare and spectacular event which could perhaps have assumed great importance (Ruggles, 1988, p. 245). The study of astronomical influences on the builders of Bronze Age ritual monuments is at times a frustrating one because the evidence is so often scanty, ill-preserved and confused. However, the reason for pursuing this line of enquiry, and for using all the means available to us -archaeological and statistical-to eke out precious nuggets of information, is clear. Because of the limitations of the archaeological record, astronomical influences actually provide one of the few ways in which modern investigators can penetrate the religious ritual of Neolithic and Early Bronze Age people living in north-western Europe many millennia before literacy come to this area.
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press. [34] Ruggles, C. L. N., Medyckyj-Scott, D. J. and Gruffydd, A. (1993) Multiple viewshed analysis using GIS and its archaeological application: A case study in northern Mull. In: Computing the Past: Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology, CAA92, J. Andresen, T. Madsen and I. Scollar (eds), pp. 125-132. Arhus University Press, Ahrus. [35] Ruggles, C. L. N. and Saunders, N. J. (1993) The study of cultural astronomy. In: Astronomies and Cultures, C. L. N. Ruggles and N. J. Saunders (eds), pp. l-3 1. University Press of Colorado, Niwot, CO. [36] Ruggles, C. L. N. and Whittle, A. W. R. (eds) (1981) Astronomy and Society in Britain During the Period 4000-l 500 BC. British Archaeological Reports (BAR 88), Oxford. [37] Schaefer, B. E. (1993a) Basic research in astronomy and its applications to archaeoastronomy. In: Archaeoastronomy in the 1990s C. L. N. Ruggles (ed.), pp. 155-177. Group D Publications, Loughborough. [38] Schaefer, B. E. (1993b) Astronomy and the limits of vision. Vistas in Astronomy 36, 3 1 l361. [39] Thorn, A. (1967) Megalithic Sites in Britain. Oxford University Press, Oxford. [40] Thorn, A. (1971) Megalithic Lunar Observatories. Oxford University Press, Oxford. [41] Walsh, P (1993) In circle and row: Bronze Age ceremonial monuments. In: Past Perceptions: The Prehistoric Archaeology of South- West Ireland, E. Shee Twohig and M. Ronayne (eds), pp. 101-l 13. Cork University Press, Cork.
Vistas in Astronomy
0083-6656(95)00020-8
Astronomical Influences on Prehistoric Ritual Architecture in North-Western Europe: The Case of the Stone Rows C. L. N. Ruggles * and H. A. W. Burl t * School of Archaeological Studies, University of Leicester, Leicester LEl 7RH, U.K. t 2 Woodland Road, Northfield, Birmingham B31 2HS, U.K.
1. INTRODUCTION Despite strong popular belief, there is no evidence that Stonehenge incorporated a great many precise astronomical alignments, and no reason to suppose that, at any stage, the site functioned as an astronomical observatory, at least in any sense that would be meaningful to a modern astronomer (Atkinson, 1966; Burl, 1981a; Heggie, 198 1, pp. 195-206; Ruggles, 198 la). Yet there is evidence that astronomical symbolism was incorporated into a range of prehistoric ritual monuments built in north-western Europe by some of the earliest farmers, from the 5th millennium BC through to Bronze Age times some 3000 years later (Burl, 1983; Ruggles and Whittle, 198 1; Ruggles, 1984a,b). The challenge for the modern investigator is to separate what ancient people might have done from what they were actually motivated to do - in other words, to interpret what remains to us in the archaeological record in a way that is, as far as possible, unclouded by ethnocentrism, that is the tendency to see ourselves in the past (Hawkes, 1966). In the case of these monuments, this must be done in the absence of independent evidence from historical documents, literature, myth (most myth and legend associated with these sites is very modem in origin by comparison with the age of the sites) - indeed, of any direct evidence apart from the archaeological record itself. We can be sure that the actions of prehistoric people were very strongly dependent upon their perceptions of the world, expressed in systems of belief and ritual, and that celestial phenomena were an integral part of this perception (Ruggles and Saunders, 1993). The use of astronomical phenomena in a given situation depended upon a range of cultural parameters, many of which we can only guess at through analogy, and many of which will always remain inaccessible to us. One thing we can do, however, is to look for repeated trends within the archaeological record, using them to suggest general principles that influenced people’s actions within certain areas at certain times. The clearest evidence for ritual astronomy comes from groups of sites, similar in form and confined to certain geographical areas (Burl, 1981b; Ruggles, 1982a).
2. THE SHORT STONE ROWS OF THE BRITISH ISLES Such a group is the short stone rows, curious linear arrangements of 2-6 standing stones found mainly in Scotland, Ireland, and north-western France (Burl, 1993). These short rows 517
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C. L. It? Ruggles and H. A. W Burl
of standing stones were erected at the end of a long tradition that began around 2800 BC with the construction of long avenues attached to circles, such as the Kennet Avenue at Avebury (Burl, 1979). In south-western Ireland, for example, rows of up to six stones were erected in their hundreds between 1800 and 1200 BC, and there is evidence to suggest that as time went on the rows got ever shorter (quite often being only a pair) and were erected in ever more remote areas towards the west coast (ibid.). There are also concentrations of short stone rows in northern Ireland, in Argyll on the western mainland of Scotland, and on the Isle of Mull, with a scattering on some of the other Hebridean islands. (For distribution maps see Burl, 1993, pp. 148-149, 182; Walsh, 1993.) It seems that these modest sites represent the tail end of a long lasting, and at times highly organised and supported, ritual monumental tradition spanning a period when the nature of society changed a very great deal, especially in those places (such as the Boyne valley, Orkney, Wessex, and southern Brittany) where it became for a long time much more organised and hierarchical. The small stone rows were not domestic sites, nor were they defensive. They do, however, quite often have funerary associations. Certainly, they were quite probably ‘family’ monuments, quite easily erected by a small number of people. It is uncommon to find a stone weighing more than 3 or 4 tons, and such megaliths could quite easily have been set upright by a gang of no more than a score of workers, with families quite possibly combining when a new site was proposed (cf. Ruggles and Burl, 1985 for the Scottish recumbent stone circles). The archaeological evidence, and indeed the statistical evidence, sits uncomfortably with the ‘lunar observatory’ idea espoused by Thorn (1967, 1971). On the archaeological side, the use of monumental stone architecture to express astronomical alignments is itself a strong argument that such alignments were symbolic, rather than intended for any use that would seem to us ‘practical’ (Ruggles, 1996a). On the statistical side, there are problems at various levels with the selection of data (Ruggles, 198 lb, 1982b, 1983). Finally, the argument for high precision astronomical alignments at prehistoric sites also conflicts with recent evidence indicating that day-to-day variations in atmospheric refraction are much greater than was previously thought (Schaefer, 1993a,b). Never investigated by Thorn, the Irish stone rows carry relatively little baggage of overzealous archaeoastronomicai interpretation. However, recent surveys of the sites in south-western Ireland (Ruggles, 1994, 1996b) do indicate possible correlations with astronomical phenomena at a low level of precision, as well as with hill summits on the horizon. Over 80 rows of 36 stones remain today in Counties Cork and Kerry, together with over 100 stone pairs (6 Nuallain, 1988). The orientations of these sites are highly concentrated about NE-SW of 69 rows whose orientations are plotted by 6 Nualliin (ibid.: Fig. 2a), all but 11 fall between 20°/2000 and 75O/255“, and all without exception fall between 350°/1700 and 100°/2800. Of 60 stone pairs, all but two fall between 6O/l86O and 88O/268’ (ibid.: Fig. 2b).
3. NEW DATA FROM THE IRISH SITES Table 1 gives details of the orientations and indicated horizons at those 3-6 stone rows for which survey data have been obtained. The first part of the table contains 4-6 stone rows, and the second part three stone rows. For details of the methodology of data acquisition, and more extensive tables including fuller archaeological and survey notes, see Ruggles (1994, 1996b). For convenience, we refer throughout to the ‘NE’ and ‘SW directions even though the rows in question may actually be oriented NNE-SSW, ENE-WSW, or even N-S or E-W. The actual orientation data are given in the table. Figures 1 and 2 present the data as a cumulative histogram in the manner of Thorn (e.g. 1967, Fig. 8.1), but with Gaussian curves of varying
Astronomical Injluences on Prehistoric Ritual Architecture Table 1. Orientations and indicated horizons at 3- to 6-stone rows in south-western Ireland. Column headings: (I) County (Co=CorWKe=Kerry); (2) Catalogue no. in 6 Nuallain (1988); (3) Site name; (4) Irish National Grid reference; (5) No. of stones still standing; (6) No. of stones remaining (standing or prostrate); (7) Estimate of original no. of stones in row; (8) Mean axis, quoted to the nearest degree; (9) “Preferred direction” estimated from stone height gradation; (10) Minimum Declination (“NE” indication), quoted to the nearest 0.2 degrees; (11) Maximum Declination (“NE” indication), quoted to the nearest 0.2 degrees; (I 2) Minimum Declination (‘SW” indication), quoted to the nearest 0.2 degrees; (13) Maximum Declination (“SW” indication), quoted to the nearest 0.2 degrees.
LCo I8
Ke U3 Co 28 Ke U4 Ke 168 Co I36
ITullig
Dromkeam Dromcarra North Eightemua Garrough Castlenalacht
t-1
27 Cloonshear Beg 29 Rosanakilla 1Co I 30 I Canrooska currakeal Cashelkeelty
I w31
V54 W278681 15 15 I 5 ] 44-224 I --I +25.41+28.21 V512646 14 14 14 147-227 12271+24.61+26.21 -25.81 -24.0
519
520
C. L. h! Ruggles and H. A. W Burl
Fig. 1. South-west Irish 4- to 6-stone rows: line data.
Fig. 2. South-west Irish 3- to 6-stone rows: line data.
width. The area under each curve is 1.0 and the standard deviation has been taken as half the difference between the maximum and minimum declinations quoted in the table. A cut-off has been imposed below -37O.O. Where a line is in the apparent direction of the indication (as judged by the gradation in stone height and size) it is shaded dark. Where the apparent direction of indication is unknown or uncertain the line is given light shading. Lines opposite to the apparent direction of indication are left white. Peaks are evident at about -29O and +29O, within about a degree of the major lunar standstills at -3OO.O and +2E”.2. However, in the southern case the peak is within the lunar limit whereas in the northern case it is beyond it. This distribution appears significantly different from what would be expected by chance (see Ruggles, 1984a for details of Monte Carlo methods to establish this formally) but, as it stands, is not greatly enlightening. A clearer trend becomes evident when an attempt is made to take into account the presence on the horizon of prominent hills. Recent work on both the recumbent stone circles of eastern Scotland (Ruggles and Burl, 1985) and the stone rows on northern Mull (Ruggles and Martlew, 1992) suggests that prominent hilltops may be an important factor in the symbolism of these sites. They do not occur by any means at every site (see Ruggles, 1994, 1996b), but where they do they may give a better idea of the intended indication than the present positions of the stones. Unfortunately it is difficult to give anything but a highly subjective definition of prominence. In order to avoid this we have merely tabulated the point of highest apparent altitude within each horizon range. Where this point is one or other end of the range, i.e. the indication is upon the side of a hill, or the altitude variation within the entire range is very small (smaller than, say, 0.2 degrees), then we consider that no high-point of possible interest exists. The data are presented in Table 2, and displayed in Figs 3 and 4. The standard deviation on each curve is now taken to be a fixed OO.4.The dataset is too small for us to be able to make any definitive statements, although the small accumulation of peaks close to the minor lunar standstill at - 19O.6may be of interest.
Astronomical Influences on Prehistoric Ritual Architecture
Table 2. Highest points in the indicated horizon ranges at 3- to 6-stone rows in southwestern Ireland. Column headings: (1) Catalogue no. in 6 Nuallain (1988); (2) Site name; (3) Direction (“NE”/“SW”); (4) Stone gradation in this direction? (Y/N or - [neither or unknown]); (5) Name of peak; (6) Distance (km); (7) Azimuth of summit, to the nearest 0.1 degrees; (8) Altitude of summit, to the nearest 0.1 degrees; (9) Declination of summit, to the nearest 0.1 degrees.
521
522
C. L. h! Ruggies and H. A. l4! Burl
ilu~lllllilllllllllllllilllllllll Declination Fig. 3. South-west Irish 4- to 6-stone rows: peak data
Fig. 4. South-west Irish 3- to 6-stone rows: peak data.
4. COMBINED DATA FROM THE IRISH AND SCOTTISH SITES It is certainly of interest at this stage to attempt to combine the data from the stone rows in south-west Ireland with that from the similar sites in western Scotland. Curiously, no archaeoastronomical investigation has ever been undertaken of the western Scottish stone rows in their entirety and as a group in themselves, although relevant data have often been collected as part of other investigations. In particular, the survey of 300 western Scottish megalithic sites conducted by Ruggles and his colleagues in the 1970s and 1980s (Ruggles, 1984a) contains much relevant information, and this is summarised in Table 3, supplemented by some more recent data for sites in Argyll and Mull. The range of indication here is taken to be the ‘adjacent azimuth range’ defined in Ruggles (1984a, p. 60). The western Scottish sites manifest a generally N-S orientation pattern rather than the generally NE-SW one in the Irish case. Statistical analyses of the western Scottish data as a whole have suggested a pattern of lunar orientation in the southerly direction (ibid., chap. 12) and this has been backed up by more detailed investigations of stone rows in the Kilmartin area of Argyll and northern Mull (Ruggles, 1985). The difference in orientation pattern between the Irish and Scottish stone rows reminds us that we must exercise some caution in combining data from two groups of sites which, although similar in form, may represent traditions separated in time as well as space. Reassuringly, despite the 500 km of sea between them, the short rows of western Scotland and southern Ireland probably shared a common ancestry. For centuries a tradition of setting up lines of standing stones, first in avenues leading to stone circles, then in long single rows had been developing in western Britain, undergoing change, diminishing, and spreading steadily towards the west (Burl, 1993, pp. 147-151). Ultimately the custom reached the two regions under discussion. There is little dating evidence but what there is suggests that the southern Irish sites were constructed around the middle of the Bronze Age and the western Scottish ones possibly even later. Two Irish radiocarbon assays, one from Maughanasilly, a row of five stones in Co. Cork, of 1315+55 bc (Lynch, 1981, p. 71) and another from the three-stone row of Dromatouk, Co. Kerry, of 1380+80 bc (ibid., p. 99) can be calibrated into ‘real’ years of c. 1600 BC and 1675 BC, respectively. While such dates are in close accordance with two calculations of 1640+70 BC and 1580& 100 BC based upon supposed high precision solstitial alignments at
Astronomical Influences on Prehistoric Ritual Architecture
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Table 3. Orientations and indicated horizons at 3- to Wane rows in westernScotland. Columnheadings:(1) Site referenceno. in BAR123; (2) Site name; (3) British National Grid reference; (4) No. of stones still standing; (5) No. of stones remaining (standing or prostrate); (6) Estimate of original no. of stones in row; (7) Mean axis, quoted to the nearest degree; (8) Line no. in BAR123 (northern indication); (9) Minimum Declination (northern indication), quoted to the nearest 0.2 degrees; (10) Maximum Declination (northern indication), quoted to the nearest 0.2 degrees; (11) Line no. in BAR123, or other reference (southern indication) [a. Taken from Ruggles, 1988, Table 9.1; b. Taken from Ruggles and Martlew, 1989; c. Taken from Martlew and Ruggles, 19931;(12) Minimum Declination (southern indication), quoted to the nearest 0.2 degrees; (13) Maximum Declination (southern indication), quoted to the nearest 0.2 degrees.
Ballochroy, a three stone row on the Kintyre peninsula of Argyll (Bailey et al., 1975), the weight of evidence must now be taken as against the idea of Ballochroy as a high precision observatory (Ruggles, 1984b; Schaefer, 1993b), and so this accordance is probably fortuitous. Indeed, dates obtained recently from the two three-stone rows at Ardnacross in Mull suggest a date of construction possibly as late as c. 1000 BC (Martlew and Ruggles, 1996). It could be that the orientation differences between the Irish and Scottish stone rows are attributable to long-held local beliefs that caused people to adapt the design of these novel monuments to their own needs. But was astronomical symbolism an integral part of the underlying stone row tradition that spread to these areas? In an attempt to cast some light upon this question the line data have been combined in Fig. 5, and the peak data in Fig. 6 (the directional information available for the Irish sites has now been suppressed) and the results are striking. Very clear concentrations in declinations become evident when we move from the general orientation data to horizon peaks. The data show that more southerly orientations are generally compensated by higher hori-
C. L. N Ruggles and H. A. W Burl
524
Table 4. Highest points in the indicated horizon ranges at 3- lo S-stone rows in western Scotland. Column headings: (1) Site reference no. in BAR123;(2) Site name;(3) Direction; (4) Highestpoint is in IAR?;(5) Name of peak;(6) Distance(km); (7) Azimuth of summit, to the nearest 0.1 degrees; (8) Altitude of summit, to the nearest 0.1 degrees; (9) Declination of summit, to the nearest 0.1 degrees.
KT5 Escart KTlO BaIIochrov KT27 Clochkeil
SSW N SheirdrimHiil SW Y CaraIsland SW N KnockIavd
9.8 206.9 0.9 -29.6 12.9 222.5 0.1 -250 47.8 226.5 0.4 -23.0
12.0 11.0 10.0 9.0 8.0 7.0 6.0 5.0 4.0 3.0 2.0
1.0 0.0
9 %
4 r
.
Fig. 5. South-west Irish and western Scottish 3- to 6-stone rows: line data
zons, resulting in a much sharper cut-off below -30” than would be expected from a general spread of orientations around north-south. l Furthermore, the distribution of southern declinations in Fig. 6 is highly suggestive of an interest in the Moon. The range between the two standstills (-3OO.O to - 19O.6)represents the range of possible values of the southerly limit of the Moon’s monthly motions at different points in the 18.6 year lunar node cycle. The concentration of declinations around the two limits of the cycle is just what one would expect if sites were aligned, say, upon the midsummer (most southerly) full Moon without regard to the timing within the longer cycle, owing to the sinusoidal motion of the monthly limit between the standstills. Furthermore, a slight displacement towards higher (less negative) declinations 1 This expected distribution is significantly different for the Irish and Scottish sites because of the latitude difference between the two groups. Statistical analyses such as the Monte Carlo simulations in Ruggles (1984a) can take account of the different latitudes of the individual sites within a group.
525
Astronomical Infiuences on Prehistoric Ritual Architecture I I
l+
4.0 --------
‘1
t
I
_
llyttil
---x&-L-i
Fig. 6. South-westIrish and western Scottish 3- to 6-stone rows: peak data.
would be expected whenever the full moon observed occurred more than a few days either side of the actual solstice.
5. STONE ROWS, THE MOON, AND IDEOLOGY These data, then, appear to provide strong support for the conclusion that lunar symbolism was incorporated in a significant proportion, though by no means all, of the south-west Irish and western Scottish stone rows. There is no evidence, however, of the sort of high precision astronomy that has been discussed so much in the past. These, it seems, were symbolic, imprecise alignments much as earlier alignments had been. The burial mounds of long barrows on Salisbury Plain, for example, constantly were laid out to face somewhere in the arc between NNE and SSE where the Moon rose (Burl, 1987, pp. 26-28). Death and the Moon, it seems, went together - but with an accuracy of no more than +2O. Burl (ibid.) argues that the first Stonehenge, in the midst of these barrows, was aligned on the most northerly moonrise. But then came change: in the Early Bronze Age the axis of the earthwork was replanned towards the midsummer sunrise, and later the alignment was reversed towards the midwinter sunset. But throughout these alterations sightlines to the Moon were retained, a persistence manifested in the short rows of western Scotland and south-western Ireland 2000 years after the long barrows. Work is in progress to develop Bayesian hierarchical methods for the statistical analysis of the data presented here and for other similar data on astronomical orientations. However, people do not operate - as we expect of laws of the Universe - in a reliable and consistent way, and we must supplement statistical methods with more interpretative analyses in the light of the archaeological evidence as a whole. It is clear, for example, that many of the stone pairs and even many single aligned slabs in western Scotland follow the trend towards orientation within the limiting lunar range in the south and upon prominent horizon peaks (Ruggles, 1984a, 1985). It is also the case that there are more prominent peaks that do not satisfy the strict criterion for inclusion in this dataset and yet are undoubtedly significant: examples include Ben More, a prominent mountain directly in the direction of the alignment at Glengorm in Mull, but just hidden from the stones by local ground (it is clearly visible 2 or 3 m from the stones; Ruggles and Martlew, 1989). Who are we to say that an ‘observer’ must have stood behind the stones and sighted along them? Could not a symbolic alignment be placed where a collection of people could view moonrise over a sacred mountain whilst all standing in the vicinity of a ceremonial site? Maybe it was even important to ‘hide’ some of the symbolism of the site by placing it so that the alignment upon a sacred mountain was just obscured from the site itself: there is some support for this speculation from the fact that all five stone rows on the most northerly part of Mull are oriented within 20“ of Ben More but positioned so that the mountain can not quite, or only just, be seen from the stones (Ruggles and Martlew, 1992).
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C. L. A? Ruggles and H, A. W Burl
Whatever the status of such speculations, it is becoming increasingly clear that ideological considerations, such as relationships to prominent (sacred?) mountains and significant rising and setting positions of astronomical bodies, were an important factor alongside more practical considerations in the siting and design of ceremonial sites in Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age times in the British Isles. We can ask, for example, whether the sites chosen have greater symbolic potential than nearby alternatives that seem equally plausible on practical grounds (Ruggles et al., 1991) and use GIS techniques (especially the viewshed function) in order to explore the answers (Ruggles et al., 1993; Ruggles and Medyckyj-Scott, 1996). The apparent association between these stone rows and the Moon also leads to a number of more general questions. An obvious one is: why did the Moon have such an influence over the builders of the short stone rows, both in Ireland and Scotland? Did it inspire these monuments or were they just constructed so as to blend in, wherever possible, with a more widespread lunar cult? The association with death already mentioned is repeated in the recumbent stone circles of north-eastern Scotland where the recumbent stone, always laid in line with the southern Moon (Ruggles and Burl, 1985) often had fragments of glistening white quartz strewn around it and around the human cremations at the heart of the ring. Whether quartz was visualised as coming from the Moon itself will never be known but quartz has certainly been found in short rows with lunar associations at sites such as Glengorm and Ardnacross in Mull (Ruggles and Martlew, 1989; Martlew and Ruggles, 1993) and Knocknakilla in Ireland (Gogan, 1931). Amongst the mountains of Connemara several short rows were built entirely of white quartz blocks standing vividly in the landscape. While it is true to say that the cycles of the Moon are one of the most obvious in the sky, and form the basis of many simple calendrical systems (Aveni, 1989), an interest in the horizon rising or setting of the Moon is relatively rare. Why, then might it have been of such importance at the stone rows of the British Isles? It is possible that the high latitude of these sites, especially the Scottish ones, was a significant factor, for here the major standstill Moon is seen to scrape along the northern or southern horizon - a rare and spectacular event which could perhaps have assumed great importance (Ruggles, 1988, p. 245). The study of astronomical influences on the builders of Bronze Age ritual monuments is at times a frustrating one because the evidence is so often scanty, ill-preserved and confused. However, the reason for pursuing this line of enquiry, and for using all the means available to us -archaeological and statistical-to eke out precious nuggets of information, is clear. Because of the limitations of the archaeological record, astronomical influences actually provide one of the few ways in which modern investigators can penetrate the religious ritual of Neolithic and Early Bronze Age people living in north-western Europe many millennia before literacy come to this area.
References [I] Atkinson, R. J. C. (1966) Moonshine on Stonehenge. Antiquity 40, 212-216. [2] Aveni, A. F. (1989) Empires of Time: Calendars, Clocks, and Cultures. Basic Books, New York, NY. [3] Bailey, M. E., Cooke, J. A., Few, R. W., Morgan, J. G. and Ruggles, C. L. N. (1975) Survey of three megalithic sites in Argyllshire. Nature 253,43 l-453. [4] Burl, H. A. W. (1979) Prehistoric Avebury. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT. [5] Burl, H. A. W. (1981a) Holes in the argument. Archaeoastronomy (Center for Archaeoastronomy) 4(4), 19-25.
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[6] Burl, H. A. W. (1981b) ‘By the light of the cinerary moon’: Chambered tombs and the astronomy of death. In: Astronomy and Society in Britain During the Period 4000-1.500
BC, C. L. N. Ruggles and A. W. R. Whittle (eds), pp. 243-274. British Archaeological Reports (BAR 88), Oxford. [7] Burl, H. A. W. (1983) Prehistoric Astronomy and Ritual. Shire Archaeology, Princes Risborough. [8] Burl, H. A. W. (1987) The Stonehenge People. Dent, London. [9] Burl, H. A. W. (1993) From Carnac to Callanish: The Prehistoric Stone Rows and Avenues of Britain, Ireland and Brittany. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT. [lo] Gogan, L. S. (1931) A small stone circle at Muishire Beag. Journaf of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society 36, 9-19. [l l] Hawkes, J. (1966) God in the machine. Antiquity 41, 174-180. [ 121 Heggie, D. C. (198 1) Megalithic Science. Thames and Hudson, London. [ 131Lynch, A. (198 1) Man and Environment in South- West Ireland, 4000 BC-AD 800. British Archaeological Reports (BAR 85), Oxford. [14] Martlew, R. D. and Ruggles, C. L. N. (1993) The North Mull project (4): Excavations at Ardnacross 1989-9 1. Archaeoastronomy, no. 18 (supplement to Journal for the History of Astronomy 24), S55-S64. [15] Martlew, R. D. and Ruggles, C. L. N. (1996) Ritual and landscape on the west coast of Scotland: An investigation of the stone rows of northern Mull, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, in press. [16] 6 Nuallain, S. (1988) Stone rows in the south of Ireland. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 88C, 179-256. [ 171Ruggles, C. L. N. (1981a) Archaeoastronomical anomalies. Nature 294, 485-486. [ 181 Ruggles, C. L. N. (198 1b) A critical examination of the megalithic lunar observatories. In: Astronomy and Society in Britain During the Period 4000-1500, C. L. N. Ruggles and A. W. R. Whittle (eds), pp. 153-209. British Archaeological Reports (BAR 88), Oxford. [19] Ruggles, C. L. N. (1982a) Megalithic astronomical sightlines: Current reassessment and future directions. In: Archaeoastronomy in the Old World, D. C. Heggie (ed.), pp. 83-105. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. [ZO]Ruggles, C. L. N. (1982b) A reassessment of the high precision megalithic lunar sightlines. 1: Backsights, indicators and the archaeological status of the sightlines. Archaeoastronomy no. 4 (supplement to Journalfor the History of Astronomy 13), S21-S40. [21] Ruggles, C. L. N. (1983) A reassessment of the high precision megalithic lunar sightlines. 2: Foresights and the problem of selection. Archaeoastronomy no. 5 (supplement to Journal for the History of Astronomy 14), Sl-S36. [22] Ruggles, C. L. N. (1984a) Megalithic Astronomy: A New Archaeological and Statistical Study of 300 Western Scottish Sites. British Archaeological Reports (BAR 123) Oxford. [23] Ruggles, C. L. N. (1984b) Megalithic astronomy: The last five years. Vistas in Astronomy 21,23 l-289. 1241 Ruggles, C. L. N. (1985) The linear settings of Argyll and Mull. Archaeoastronomy no, 9 (supplement to Journal for the History of Astronomy 16) S 105-S132. [25] Ruggles, C. L. N. (1988) The stone alignments of Argyll and Mull: A perspective on the statistical approach in archaeoastronomy. In: Records in Stone: Papers in Memory of Alexander Thorn, C. L. N. Ruggles (ed.), pp. 232-250. Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge. [26] Ruggles, C. L. N. (1994) The stone rows of south-west Ireland: A first reconnaissance. Archaeoustronomy no. 19 (supplement to Journal for the History of Astronomy 25) Sls20. JP”l39:4-1
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[27] Ruggles, C. L. N. (1996a) Archaeoastronomy
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