Old, straight tracks retrodden John Michell
STONEHENGE: NEOLITHIC MAN AND THE COSMOS by John North
HarperCollins, f25, pp. 609
The blurb to this book says that Profes- sor North is one of Europe's most distin- guished historians of science, which is doubtless true, and that he has finally solved the riddle of Stonehenge, which is a vain boast. What he has done, as have many others before him, is prove that Stonehenge and megalithic monuments in general were carefully placed and orientat- ed in relation to the local rising and setting points of the sun, moon and stars at signifi- cant moments in their seasons and cycles. He shows how monuments of various ages were linked together in a system of long, straight alignments and gives astronomical reasons for this. In the last chapter he explores ancient religions for the clues they may provide to the beliefs that inspired the ritual practices of the megalith-builders. Far from solving the riddle of Stonehenge he has considerably deepened it.
Among the oldest monuments on Salisbury Plain are the stone-chambered long barrows, supposedly dating from up to 3500 BC. A feature of them all is that they stand in alignment with two or three others, and these same lines include other monuments of different types and ages. This is also the case around Avebury, on Cranborne Chase in Dorset and in other districts where North has investigated. His explanation for the lines is that the rising or setting of certain bright stars could be observed along them in opposite directions. Astronomical precision was achieved by sighting devices and adaptations to the horizon which involved the raising of giant earthworks and elaborate constructions in wood and stone. The vast scale of this work, its intended permanence and the duplication of star observations at neigh-
bouring sites imply that the astronomy was not scientific in the modern sense but an important element in the ritual of neolithic life. Archaeology and tradition both testify that the general purpose of that ritual was to preserve contact with the dead and manipulate the subtle forces of nature.
North fears that he is on the edge of a `slippery ley-line slope' — as well he might, for there is no clear distinction between his astronomical alignments of variously dated sites, sometimes marked by stretches of straight trackway, and the 'leys' which Watkins discovered and named in the 1920s. The Watkins leys extended farther than North's alignments, but an indication that both men observed the same phe- nomenon is given in North's book. One of his lines, from the centre of Woodhenge westward through the Cuckoo Stone, along the northern edge of the linear Cursus earthwork to a long barrow, has previously been published (in 1969) as an example of a ley. The line does not stop at the barrow but carries on to the church of St Michael (now a private house) on the crest of Gare Hill, an ancient site where other alignments converge. One reason why this is an important book is that it places align- ment studies on a firm astronomical base, while leaving intact the essential mystery of the subject.
It is not an easy book to read, too bulky for comfort and too wide-ranging for easy assimilation. North has indulged his word- processor and it has run away with him. Sometimes he is brilliant, notably in his reconstructions of pillar and lintel rings at Stonehenge and Woodhenge. Elsewhere, as in the chapter where he discovers stellar alignments through features of old chalk effigies, including the eye and pizzle of the Uffington White Horse, his ideas are less convincing. Another weakness is his use of the meaningless metre and the unverified 'megalithic yard', a unit that is nowhere apparent in the Stonehenge plan. Archae- ologists will add far weightier criticisms than these; in fact they are likely to dismiss the whole of North's work as a new example of the astro-archaeological heres), that has infuriated them throughout this century. From the early days of Lockyer, a physicist, and Somerville, a naval surveyor, to the professor of engineering, Alexander Thom, in the Sixties, most of the leading experts in prehistoric astronomy have come from outside the profession of archaeologY. This is resented, and North can expect the same harsh treatment that his prede- cessors were given. Yet the mass and quali- ty of his new evidence point inevitably to the conclusion he reaches, that the builders of Stonehenge and their Stone Age ances- tors were adepts at astronomy and ritual magic. The relics of their system are great and numerous, but the functions they served and the knowledge encoded in them were of an esoteric nature, which places them beyond the comprehension of modern science.
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