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

[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

[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.

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...