Name: Joan E Herron
Status: Other
Age: N/A
Location: N/A
Country: N/A
Date: N/A
Question:
We are students from Eureka High School. We are studying Archaeoastronomy
in our physics class. We would like to know if anyone out there has
information on Stonehenge and how it pertains to Archaeoastronomy. For
those unfamiliar about Archaeoastronomy, it deals with the position of the
sun and patterns that are formed with these relations.
Replies:
There are a number of good books on sites like Stonehenge. There is a Hopi
Indian site, the Nasca lines in Peru, and a woodhenge in England near
stonehenge that were all used by the ancients to predict the coming of
spring and planting times. Look up a number of good books. The Adler
Planetarium has lots of good data. If you can visit there you should find
lots of interesting things.
The best explanation is that rising and setting of the Sun and Moon at
different times of the year were determined by the lithes as determined from
various points of reference. As best as we know it was a calendar and was
used to predict times of the year for religious or agricultural purposes.
You could make similar predictions of where the Sun would rise, set, or how
high it would be at noon for yourselves and make your own calendar.
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