(© All Rights Reserved. Reproduced from
AA&ES magazine
January 1997)
![[ WAS STONEHENGE A STELLAR
OBSERVATORY? ]](_title.jpg)
By Alan F. Alford |
In March 1996, English Heritage announced the results of a two-year study of Stonehenge using the latest radiocarbon dating technology, accurate to within 80 years. More recently, Professor John North has published a 600-page study of Stonehenge and other neolithic sites in Europe. As a result of this combined research from archaeology and astronomy, we are now on the verge of a major breakthrough in our understanding of this mysterious ancient site.
The experts are now unanimous that the designers of Stonehenge exhibited a remarkable knowledge of astronomy. Nowhere is this more evident than in the rectangle formed by the four Station Stones, which marks an exact alignment to the eight key points of the 18.6-year cycle of the Moon. However, whilst such complex astronomical alignments are no longer disputed, their significance continues to be the source of much controversy.
In "Stonehenge: Neolithic Man and the Cosmos", Professor North explodes many myths about this premier British monument. The idea that Stonehenge was a calendar for agricultural purposes gets short shrift, as do the suggestions by Hawkins and Hoyle that it was used for predicting lunar eclipses. Instead, North concludes that the stones were not erected as a means to investigate the heavens, but rather to embody, in a "religious architecture", patterns which were already known in broad outline. In other words, Stonehenge was not, and never had been, an observatory.
Some Awkward Anomalies
However, although the flap to John North's book claims to have "finally solved the riddle of Stonehenge", there in fact remain several important aspects of the site which his theory leaves unexplained.
The first problem is the existence of a series of circular pits a few hundred metres to the north of the main site. These pits, measuring 4 feet across and 5 feet deep, were found to contain the charcoal remains of pine trees. Radiocarbon dating has confirmed that these ancient posts date to approximately 8000 BC - five thousand years earlier than the ditch, bank, Station Stones and Aubrey Holes of the main site. This discovery is highly significant because both sites are perfectly situated to mark the 18.6-year cycle of the Moon in a rectangular pattern, as mentioned earlier. If Stonehenge had been positioned only a few miles further north or south, this geometrical relationship would not have worked. As North points out, it is extremely unlikely that this was an accident of latitude.
Professor North states that the possible existence of a Stonehenge precursor monument in 8000 BC is ‘entirely a matter for speculation’. Whilst he declines to comment further on such a remote date, the site’s chief archaeologist Dr Geoffrey Wainwright has published a thesis suggesting that 20-feet high wooden ‘totem poles’ were erected and worshipped by our neolithic ancestors. However, can we really believe that a group of people just happened to select this unique lunar-aligned location for religious worship, or were these ‘totem poles’ in fact astronomical markers, forerunners of what was to come just over 5,000 years later? As we shall soon see, this 8000 BC date could turn John North’s conclusions on their head.
The second anomaly of Stonehenge is its often- overlooked Avenue - a 2-mile long earthen causeway, in three sections, which stretches from the site to the River Avon (Figure 1). John North’s book offers a number of possible explanations for the Avenue, but in his final analysis of the site, its importance is left dangling. Indeed, no-one has yet offered a satisfactory explanation for this Avenue, which was certainly superfluous to any observations of the Sun and Moon.
The Sirius Alignment
I was therefore intrigued to find that North had discovered an alignment of the Avenue’s first, and oldest, section on the setting of the star Sirius in 3180 BC, just a century or so earlier than the datings for the Stonehenge ditch (c. 2965 BC). Furthermore, North noted that the Avenue was perfectly positioned to observe the heavens above the monument. He stated: ‘There is a certain peculiarity in the terrain that makes the turning point of the Avenue a highly appropriate observation point... A ray of light reaching the eye of a person of standard height who was standing at or somewhat beyond the turn, would have cleared the intervening terrain in a very satisfactory manner, and have grazed almost perfectly the area on which the stone monument stood, or was destined to stand’.
When we combine this alignment, illustrated in Figure 2, with the Sirius alignment c. 3180 BC, there is a strong case to suggest that this was one of the most fundamental aspects of the Stonehenge site - and yet North regards it as being of minor importance.
At this point, we should note that North has argued conclusively for the main alignment of Stonehenge being to the south-west, to sunset at the winter solstice, and not to the summer solstice in the north-east. The Avenue’s line of sight to the heavens thus lies in the same direction. North has also established that the viewing position at Stonehenge was never from inside the circle, as commonly thought, but rather from the Heel Stone. It seems probable that the very same Heel Stone, or possibly the stone that once stood alongside it in stone-hole 97, also provided a marker for the observer looking up the Avenue towards the starry skies.
It is also essential to understand that the earthen avenue that we see today, and which has been radiocarbon-dated to around 2000 BC, may not be the original version. North is fairly certain that the present Avenue had a much older precursor, dating to 2600 BC or earlier. This would explain why the median line of the Avenue, in its present form, does not pass exactly through the centre of the Aubrey or Sarsen circles as we would expect it to. The idea that the original Avenue was of very different form (perhaps a narrow path) might also explain why earthen avenues approaching stone circles are extremely rare.
Religion or Science?
What then is the significance of the Avenue and how does it fit or contradict North’s theory of Stonehenge as a religious monument? The implication of North’s study is that stellar alignments, such as that at Stonehenge, originated from a widespread religious worship of the stars, traceable to the fourth and fifth millennium BC. However, if we accept the argument that astronomy was practised at Stonehenge in 8000 BC, North’s thesis is stood on its head, and it becomes possible to conclude that the stellar cults originated at the site of Stonehenge itself. What then is the significance of the 8000 BC ‘totem poles’? Do they mark the beginning of a British neolithic religion, or is there another alternative?
Let us return to the idea that Stonehenge was an observatory. It is clear that whoever designed it already had a highly sophisticated knowledge of lunar and solar cycles beforehand, so we can dismiss the idea that it was a lunar or solar observatory - no-one would build an observatory to tell them what they already knew! But there is one other possibility which should also be considered. Let us suspend our disbelief for a moment and explore the possibility that Stonehenge was a stellar observatory. Could the site have been used to calculate the precessional movement of the stars which is caused by the Earth’s wobble?
Whilst the cycles of Sun and Moon have been measured countless times with a high degree of accuracy, the precessional cycle is something that modern astronomers have never measured in total, and the quoted figures, usually around 26,000 years, are no more than estimates. The first thing that strikes us is that it would be a tremendous challenge to measure such a cycle, and this might certainly explain why someone went to so much trouble at Stonehenge.
The second point in support of a stellar observatory is the length of the first section of the Avenue, which dwarfs the stone circle itself. If its importance was simply a one-off religious alignment, then it would not have needed to be 600 metres long. This length suggests a need for accuracy which is entirely consistent with the idea of a stellar observatory.
The third argument in favour of a stellar observatory is the neat manner in which it explains all of the site’s astronomical alignments - Sun, Moon and stars - in terms of a common purpose which is not religious but purely scientific. Whilst the recordings of solar years or 18.6-year lunar cycles are of no practical use in themselves, they do become meaningful as a basis for measuring precessional cycles. Thus the precessional rate of change can be expressed as one degree in 72 solar years or 31 degrees in 120 lunar cycles.
Why would anyone wish to measure precession in terms of two different calendars? The answer could lie in the requirement for a stable yardstick against which to measure the precessional rate of change. Whilst the solar calendar might be preferred by some for its simplicity, it lacks the accuracy of the lunar calendar when it comes to precessional prediction. This is because the yardstick of solar observations (from one solstice to the next) contains what one is trying to measure in the first place (the precessional slippage), and a systematic error is therefore introduced, amounting to one month every 2,160 years.
Critics of this theory might well ask why anyone would be interested in measuring precessional cycles, which vastly exceed the human life span. In answer, one need only point out that the ancient Egyptians and Sumerians did know the length of the precessional cycle as early as the fourth millennium BC. The archaeologist Jane Sellers has cited the importance of the number 72 in Egypt, representing one degree of the 360-degree celestial cycle, but it is even more obvious in the mathematical system of the Sumerians - a quasi-sexagesimal system structured around divisions and multiples of the number 25,920. This ancient knowledge has presented a considerable conceptual barrier to experts in archaeology and ancient history, who rightly ask where such a knowledge could possibly have come from. The tantalising possibility is that the origin of Stonehenge c. 8000 BC might provide the answer.
Conclusions
Once again, the paradigm of modern science prevents us from reaching a satisfactory conclusion. Just as it is apparently ‘impossible’ for the Giza pyramids to have been aligned to the stars in 10450 BC, so it is also ‘impossible’ for the Sphinx to have been weathered by rainfall in this early era, and so too will it be considered ‘impossible’ for the Stonehenge site to have been specially selected by astronomers c. 8000 BC.
In summary, whilst the physical evidence supports the thesis that Stonehenge was a stellar observatory, it is clearly not impossible that the motives of its builders were, on the contrary, purely religious. One cannot easily dismiss the idea that a stellar cult could have evolved from our ancestors’ awe of the heavens, and it is entirely feasible that a stellar cult could have originated without any scientific motives. The notion of a priestly elite carefully observing the motions of Sun and Moon to mark important religious occasions is not altogether unconvincing.
The choice between these two rival theories can only be made according to what is possible and probable in terms of the culture that designed Stonehenge. It should be noted that the religious theory has yet to explain its own implication that the emphasis changed away from the stars in the third millennium BC. The stellar observatory theory, in contrast, explains this perfectly, for the stellar alignment at Stonehenge only needed to be fixed once; the perceived shift in emphasis from stars to Sun and Moon c. 2600-2400 BC was therefore more apparent than real.
Thus far, the stellar observatory theory holds the advantage over the religion theory, pending further study of neolithic cultural beliefs. Next month we will see what happens when we attempt to use archaeology and mythology to gain a better understanding of the mindset of the ancient peoples.
AA&ES will be publishing two follow-up articles by Alan F. Alford in February and March 1997. These articles will definitively prove that Stonehenge was indeed a stellar observatory, and will offer a conclusive identification of its designers.
Other books by Alan F Alford.
Gods of the New Millennium : Scientific Proof of Flesh & Blood Gods
by Alan F. AlfordIn this book, Alford examines the idea that human culture and indeed human genes may have been planted onto this planet by extraterrestrial intelligences. Following the pioneering explorations and speculations by his predecessors von Daeniken and Sitchin, Alford examines several "unexplained mysteries" - from ancient Sumeria, pharaonic Egypt, Baalbek to Stonehenge, Nazca and Peru. [buy online]
Phoenix Solution - Secrets of a Lost Civilisation.
by Alan F. Alford
[buy online]
Other books about Stone Henge
Stonehenge Complete
by Christopher Chippindale[buy online]
Great Stone Circles: Fables, Fictions, Facts by Aubrey Burl
[buy online]
Stonehenge: A New Interpretation of Prehistoric Man and the Cosmos by John David North
"In a book that finally solves the riddle of Stonehenge, scholar John North draws on more than 15 years of research to offer a masterful "case-closed" study in which he examines the monument from all available angles--archeological, astronomical, and spiritual--and considers relevant research from other prehistoric remains in Britain and Northern Europe."
[buy online]
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