Aboriginal Sundial Pre-Dates Stonehenge

brindafella writes "Look out, Stonehenge, here come the Wurdi Youang rocks in the Australian state of Victoria. The semi-circle of stones has been examined by an astrophysicist from Australia's premier research group, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), who says this arrangement of rocks is a carefully aligned solar observatory that may be 10,000 years old. It would have been created by local Aborigines, the Wathaurong people, who have occupied the area for some 25,000 years."

Comments

Sloppy Half-circle

[JumperCable]

It doesn't look like much from the picture. The only supporting statement in the article is:

its two points set in perfect alignment with the setting sun on a midsummer's day.

I'd like a little more supporting documentation before getting all excited about this.

Re:Sloppy Half-circle

[Cimexus]

Well I agree it doesn't look like much, but then again it's 10,000 years old. That's much older than most other such remnants in the world. Either way, it's definitely not natural. Humans did this. The question is: for what purpose?

If it does align perfectly on the with the sun on the solstices, then this becomes very interesting. The likelihood that humans happened to place the rocks on that exact alignment by pure chance (as opposed to any other random alignment) is small.

If on the other hand the alignment isn't really very significant from a solar/stellar perspective it's probably just some ancient place marker or something instead. Still interesting, mind you, but nothing globally unique.

Re:Sloppy Half-circle

[Anonymous Coward]

For those of you who would actually read TFA if it were available:

N258: Wurdi Youang: An Australian Aboriginal Stone Circle with possible solar indications.
Ray P. Norris, Priscilla M. Norris, Duane W. Hamacher, and John Morieson , 2010, To be submitted to Archaeoastronomy Journal

From the Authors webpage:
http://www.atnf.csiro.au/people/rnorris/

Re:Sloppy Half-circle

[TeXMaster]

Well I agree it doesn't look like much, but then again it's 10,000 years old. That's much older than most other such remnants in the world. Either way, it's definitely not natural. Humans did this. The question is: for what purpose?

If it does align perfectly on the with the sun on the solstices, then this becomes very interesting. The likelihood that humans happened to place the rocks on that exact alignment by pure chance (as opposed to any other random alignment) is small.

Was the alignment correct 10k years ago? Don't the precessions influence the relative position of the sun and Earth in a way that would be significant after 10k years, meaning that something on Earth aligned with a specific Sun position at a specific time of the year now would not be valid 10k years ago, and conversely?

Re:Sloppy Half-circle

[somersault]

Hard to believe that rocks will just sit in the same place for 10000 years

I found this hard to believe at first too. I've been sitting watching this rock for over 25 years now though, and no sign of movement on the micrometer. I'm starting to have my doubts.

Re:Sloppy Half-circle

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Only 10K? That's hardly 2/5s the time these folks have been local to the region. For them, this is a late, modern development. For European descendants it is an incredible antiquity.

Interesting to think of these timelines, regarding common perception. Cleopatra lived and died closer in time to the era of Moon landings than she did to the building of the great pyramid at Giza.

Re:Sloppy Half-circle

[gstoddart]

How did you make the leap from "not natural" to "Humans did this"?

Because it's far less of a leap than "Other animals? Aliens?".

To date, we haven't seen any evidence that 'other animals' have ever put together time-keeping measures ... and, well, the alien theory is more extraordinary than the notion that a people who have been there for at least 40,000 years did something like this 10,000 years ago.

The most likely conclusion is that "not natural" means "Humans did this".

Re:Sloppy Half-circle

[mangu]

Don't the precessions influence the relative position of the sun and Earth in a way that would be significant after 10k years, meaning that something on Earth aligned with a specific Sun position at a specific time of the year now would not be valid 10k years ago, and conversely?

Yes, but that only changes the positions relative to the stars. Precession means the rotation axis of the earth changes the way it points, but the axis is the same. North is always the same direction, apart from a relatively small polar motion.

Re:Sloppy Half-circle

[GooberToo]

For what its worth, I saw a documentary on these rocks many a year ago. They attempted to move a rock using fx- fans, which basically created winds of a small hurricane. They were completely unable to move a single rock. Furthermore, such winds are completely undocumented for the region. Not to mention, most agree such winds, in moving the rock, would sandblast the trail, obliterating it.

Realistically, these rocks are a scientific mystery. Some have suggested the rocks are in fact NOT moving and that its an illusion created by its tail. Along these lines, some scientist say we should be looking for alternate explanations of how the tail (the trail) is created rather than focusing on what appears to be moving rocks.

Stonehenge isn't even the oldest in the UK

[lilo_booter]

There are older stone circles in the UK than Stonehenge. The stone circles in Orkney predate Stonehenge for example, though admittedly not by as much as those claimed here.

More details from the CSIRO

[Random Data]

Linky here

10,000 years, that's nothing---

[kmdrtako]

Try 75,000 years old, in Africa.

http://www.adamscalendar.com/pages/michael-tellinger.php

Well, the guy might be a bit of a loon. Apparently he believes in little green men in flying saucers too, but the stone circle is apparently real.

Re:How do you put a date on something like that?

[aiht]

What also puzzles me, is why cultures that create such structures, just kinda sorta die out? Like the Egyptians who built pyramids, whoever built Stonehenge, and the like?

Answer: All cultures die out over this kind of time span. But for some reason, we just don't pay any attention to the ones that leave no evidence of ever having existed...

Re:Amazing, now let's peer-review the science!

[Chrisq]

What's that you say?

Its location is a closely guarded secret.

Then that's not science, it's a bullshit claim by one guy who for all we know throw down some rocks in his back yard and took a picture of them. [citation needed]

In other words an outcrop circle.

Older than Stonhenge

[stiggle]

This is nothing special or new - there are loads of stone circles and other landscape features which pre-date stonehenge and are astronomically aligned. Stonehenge isn't even the best stone circle in the area.

If you want to get up close to the stones and see a proper ancient landscape then head up to Avebury instead.
You have the village inside the huge circle, the other circles, the avenues, Silbury Hill, the Kennet Long Barrows, The Sanctuary.
All together Avebury is a much better AND cheaper stone circle complex to visit than stonehenge.

Re:Coincidence?

[multipartmixed]

> Could I be on to something?

Rozwell.. Rothwell..

By golly, yes!

It seems that aliens are naming the places where they land -- and some of them lisp!

I'm at a loss as to why that's a problem

[Moraelin]

TBH I don't understand what's so incredible. I mean, it's interesting as history information, but it's not like it's some great knowledge. Humans 10,000 years ago were already the modern humans, and probably just as smart as most people here.

As I was saying in another post, there is a very simple way of marking where the sun sets for the solstices, because they're the extreme points left and right. Just moving a stone each evening until you found the rightmost point the sun sets, and a different stone for leftmost, will get you those two points pretty well. The third point is simply the middle of the segment, and something that you can measure even with your feet.

The whole thing is perfectly within the range of things human could figure out 10,000 or even 100,000 years ago.

They don't even have to understand such things as solstice or equinox. Pretty much you just need someone to figure out "hey, didn't the sun set behind the other bush some time ago?" And from there, if you're bored and have a year or two to look where it sets, you can mark pretty well how far north and how far south can the sun set.

Re:I'm at a loss as to why that's a problem

[DavidTC]

So they can tell when in the year they're at.

That's very useful for planting and floods and whatnot. You can't figure out when to do stuff if you don't know when you are.

The only other option is to just count days, and that's very hard, and even harder when you haven't invented useful numbers or place values yet. Back then, they'd have numbers from one to twenty or whatever, and that was essentially it. If they were lucky they could count moons, but the moons do not divide evenly into the year so that doesn't work well.

But once they notice that shadows move back and forth, they can do what the GP said, stick up a pole and mark the summer and winter solstice with essential no work at all, and then mark 10 rocks across or something. And they could just look at it, and figure out that, despite it being cooler already, they shouldn't plant yet, it just got cooler early this year, and it's still 'five rocks' or whatever to solstice, and they're supposed to plant at four. (Or even put some sort of carved symbol at exactly the right place that means 'plant'.)