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Wedge Tombs
Wedge tombs are a distinctive type of megalithic passage tomb found all over Ireland, but mainly in the west. Over five hundred examples are known, and while they vary widely in size, they do have a defining characteristic: a trapezoidal central chamber, its sides formed by two lines of large, upright stones (orthostats), which is wider and higher toward the entrance end, forming a wedge shape. The bulk of wedge tomb construction took place in the second half of the third millennium B.C.E., placing them chronologically toward the end of a rich tradition of Neolithic tomb construction in Ireland.
The other property that confirms the wedge tombs as a useful category of monuments is the strong consistency in their orientations. Nearly all known examples face the western arc of the horizon, with the majority facing southwest. It is unusual to have such a clear preference for westerly orientation among a group of Neolithic tombs, let alone such a substantial one. The only other example in Britain or Ireland is the few dozen Clava cairns of northeast Scotland. The fact that the Clava cairns also seem to represent a late development suggests that a strong predilection for westerly/southwesterly orientations only developed toward the end of the Neolithic. A similar preference is evident in the orientations of the axial stone circles of southwest Ireland, a region where there is a major concentration of wedge tombs, as well as among the recumbent stone circles of northeast Scotland, which occupy an area close to that where the Clava cairns are found.
What is the astronomical significance of the wedge tombs? Viewed in the context of groups of later prehistoric temples and tombs found all over western Europe, their pattern of orientation fits the “sun descending or setting” model. In other words, each tomb was oriented upon a position where the sun was seen either to set, or to be descending in the sky, on a significant day—perhaps the day on which construction was begun. However, there is one well-studied example that provides tantalizing evidence of more particular concerns. This is the tomb of Altar, situated on the south coast of the Mizen peninsula at the very extreme of southwest Ireland, close to the village of An Tuar Mуr (Toormore).
The Altar tomb commands a clear view down toward the tip of the Mizen peninsula, and is directly oriented upon the conspicuous Mizen Peak, which forms a distinctive pyramid shape on the horizon some twelve kilometers (eight miles) away. Added to this, the tomb’s orientation may have had a calendrical significance. As was first pointed out by Boyle Somerville, who surveyed the monument in 1931, it is oriented upon the position of sunset within a couple of days of February 4 and November 5. These are two of the mid-quarter days, which along with the solstices, equinoxes, and the other two mid-quarter days divide the year into eight equal parts. This interested Somerville because the November date corresponded to the festival of Samhain in the Celtic calendar.
The problems with this interpretation apply to all supposed equinoctial and mid-quarter-day alignments, many of which were highlighted in reassessments of the “megalithic” calendar proposed in Britain by Alexander Thom. On the other hand, an intriguing aspect of Altar is the existence of archaeological evidence that suggests a sequence of ritual activity stretching from around 2000 B.C.E. up to at least the first century C.E. This evidence might support the argument of continuity of tradition into “Celtic” times.
However, Altar does not seem to be typical even of the wedge tombs in its immediate vicinity, at least to judge from an analysis of nine other wedge tombs in the Mizen peninsula. Even the impressive topographic alignment appears to be a “one-off.” This means that, as with other single instances among groups such as the solstitially aligned axial stone circle at Drombeg, one must continue to wonder whether the alignments could have arisen fortuitously rather than intentionally.
See also:
Celtic Calendar; Equinoxes; “Megalithic” Calendar; Mid-Quarter Days; Pre
historic Tombs and Temples in Europe; Somerville, Boyle (1864–1936);
Thom, Alexander (1894–1985).
Axial Stone Circles; Clava Cairns; Drombeg; Recumbent Stone Circles.
References and further reading
O’Brien, William. Sacred Ground: Megalithic Tombs in Coastal South-West
Ireland. Department of Archaeology, Galway: National University of Ire
land Galway, 1999.
Worldview
See Cosmology.
X
Xochitecatl
See Cacaxtla.
Years B.C.E. and Years before 0
There is great potential for confusion between the ways that archaeologists and astronomers reckon dates before the birth of Christ. For the archaeologist, the year before C.E. 1 is 1 B.C.E. In other words, there was no “year 0.” The convention amongst astronomers, on the other hand, is to count years backward on a linear scale, so that the year before the year 1 was the year 0, the year before that was –1, and so on. This means, for example, that the archaeologist’s year 331 B.C.E. is the astronomer’s year –330.
This issue becomes crucially important, for example, at the Iron Age causeway site of Fiskerton in England, where it has been proposed that episodes of reconstruction may have been associated with lunar eclipses. In order to test this idea, archaeologically determined tree-ring dates need to be compared with astronomically determined eclipse dates.
See also:
Fiskerton.
References and further reading
Ruggles, Clive. Astronomy in Prehistoric Britain and Ireland, ix. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999.
Yekuana Roundhouses
The Yekuana live amid the rainforests of southern Venezuela, along the banks of the river Orinoco and its tributaries. Their traditional dwellings are communal roundhouses large enough to house several families. They have walls of wattle and daub and a huge conical roof, thatched over, through which the central pole protrudes, pointing directly upwards at the heavens.
According to Yekuana myth, the design of the roundhouse was handed down by the Sun (Wanadi) himself, the creator of the world, and reflects the properties of the cosmos in a variety of ways. A circular inner room represents the sea (this is used as sleeping space for bachelor men as well as a place for rituals and ceremonials presided over by the village shaman), and the outer ring, divided radially into compartments where different families live, represents the land. The roof is seen as a reflection of the celestial dome: it is supported by upright posts known as “pillars of the stars,” and the horizontal crossbeam supporting it, always placed in a north-south orientation, has the name of the Milky Way. The center post reaches down into the underworld and up, beyond the roof, to the heavens. Placed centrally within the roof space, about three meters (ten feet) above the floor, is a set of tie beams forming a rectangular structure. This has a practical purpose in helping to support the crossbeam and providing a frame from which the men sleeping in the central space can hang their hammocks. However, its precise rectangular shape also has a cosmological significance: the directions of the four corners from the center pole are the directions of sunrise and sunset at the solstices and, together with the pole itself, represent the four corners and center of the world.