Sunday, February 12, 2006

Marker Pile sites

I introduced the word marker pile below [Click here].
Here is an idealized sketch of a marker pile site: the piles are almost evenly space and lie along lines which lead uphill to a high elevation horizon. At an actual site there may be dozens of the these lines of sight. Some other features which occur at marker pile sites are
  • aperture piles
  • lines which lead to a ledge with a quartz rock on the ledge
  • prayer seats
The sketch suggests these lines of sight might be designed to point at a sunrise even or a star event. I do not think it is a fantasy that the hills in the Rt 495 corridor often have lines of piles which slant up down and across their slopes. There are more than half a dozen site like this along there and within three or four miles. But whether these sites were built to watch events at a high elevation horizon is just a guess. If you like, it is a fantasy which helps to organize the information. So I hope this at least explains the idea of a marker pile site. And why mention this now? Because I want to say that the Hill of 500 Cairns is a typical marker pile site and I need to establish the vocabulary.

Here is an example from Stow.

And here is a view uphill to the east at The Hill of 500 Cairns.

2 comments :

pwax said...

I forgot about moon events. Wish someone would step up and do the archeo-astronomy here.

pwax said...

I like this graphic. It says more than 1,000 words - although I admit I haven't tried the words.