Julian Cope presents Head Heritage

Oh yes, it relates to the topic. I'd need a secretary to work my way through the forums. Surprising to see Fourwinds, too, I thought he stopped popping round here ages ago. Great to see that that thread also derives into central European stuff - the infamous Berliner Goldhut, the gold hat!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Gold_Hat

Hoskin did some good work including Iberian and other tombs, too, though, for me, the fact that most tombs are orientated similarly (evident to see on any field work) has little to do with proper allignments or archaeo-astronomy. Excellent work though, to massively survey hundreds of megalithic sites to check their orientation and confirm what we'd all seen and suspected all along.

For more complex astral allignments, lots of other variables (also on rock art) are underestimated too, like geographical features or vegetation cover in prehistory, therefore pollen analysis of the surrounding area etc must be done in conjunction, but you know that. Inconsistency is still rife at the moment and there is a possibility that one important variable is also missing - prehistoric errors in some sites (not in others) where allignments are too complex, especially in the lunar ones. For instance, after a while you tend to notice that it is evident that not all rock art was as uniquely or accurately made. Or that the (solar) equinoctial lines being found in Galician cup and ring complexes recently may be there, but not in all sites. This is obvious, but it is sometimes forgotten that the fact that one rule does not apply absolutely everywhere does not deny the whole thing. Humans are messy by nature.

Still, as said, simple consistent prehistoric orientations with the sunrise or topographical features are clearly there (as they are in ancient churches). Even here, there is always the tomb that's the exception to the rule and points in the opposite direction (W instead of SE) or whose view is covered on all sides.

The studies on allignements at henges sound very promising though as they are, with the gates, quite mathematical.