Missing data

This short paper focuses on monuments in the Stonehenge landscape, including Stone­henge itself, with the aim of presenting a “modern” picture of these monuments and their astronomy that is consistent with the latest archaeological evidence. While the connection of Stonehenge and other nearby monuments to astronomy is recognized by UNESCO as part of the Outstanding Universal Value of the Stonehenge World Heritage site, the only specific manifestation of this that has achieved broad consensus among archaeologists is the solstitial sightlines, indicated by the main axes of the stone settings at Stonehenge and the multiple timber circles at Woodhenge and Durrington Walls Southern Circle. These sightlines —precise enough to pinpoint the solstice in space although not in time— seem to represent a specific development in this area around the mid-3rd millennium BC. We proceed to critique some recent papers by well-respected archaeologists proposing (i) that Stonehenge encapsulated key elements of a 365¼-day solar calendar in the numer­ology of its key features; (ii) that a “mega-circle” of huge pits, over 2km in diameter, was built around the same time as the stone circle at Stonehenge, centred on Durrington Walls Henge; and (iii) that two large pits were placed in the Stonehenge Cursus positioned on the summer solstice sunrise and sunset alignments as viewed from the Heel Stone. We present new evidence to counter (ii) and argue that all these ideas extrapolate well beyond the available evidence and fall foul of basic methodological considerations (e.g., regarding data selection) that have been well known to cultural astronomers since the 1980s. We finish with a discussion of some open questions. The first is whether Stonehenge and some nearby contemporary monuments might have been placed at locations already per­ceived as significant because of the approximately solstitial alignment of natural features. Another is how long the solstitial sightlines remained “operational” in the sense of being usable for actual observations, and what this implies for their interpretation —particularly for ideas of solstitial observances involving processions between the different monuments. Third is the possibility that the solstitial orientations evident at and around Stonehenge in the mid-3rd millennium BC might have derived from practices developed centuries earlier in southwest Wales, from which the Stonehenge bluestones were brought. A final question that remains largely unresolved is whether the lunar alignment of the Station Stone rect­angle at Stonehenge was indeed intentional and, if so, what was its purpose and meaning. Recent investigations have succeeded in casting some new light on the subject.