“Where did they stand?” A probabilistic approach to the study of orientation of enclosed areas
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 2020-11-25

Prehistoric structures have been studied under the lens of landscape archaeology and archae-oastronomy  in  search  of  correlates  between  orientations  encoded  in  their  architecture  and  topographic  features  or  celestial  objects  that  may  materialize  the  ontology  of  their  builders.  For the large part, such studies have been done under what could be described as a "discrete" foundation, which is to say, single measurements of orientation were taken and any uncertain-ties largely ignored. However, for several prehistoric structures such an approach can only be pursued  by  making  assumptions,  for  example  of  where  a  prehistoric  person  would  stand  in  order to observe such an alignment. Structures with large internal areas and a reduced number of entrances, such as henges, enclosures and stone circles, provide a variety of vantage points from which alignments are possible and, in many instances, the archaeological record does not provide clues to choose between them. This paper presents an innovative approach, combining GIS and R. By using Monte Carlo sampling, a probability distribution that fully encapsulates all possible orientations and their likelihood is obtained. Such distributions can then be used to infer alignments to topographic features and celestial events on much firmer ground and with full transparency over uncertainties and assumptions. A complementary top-down approach can also be employed, wherein one can find out which areas inside the structure could be used to observe a given topographic feature or celestial event. We introduce this methodology by applying it to a number of structures from prehistoric Western and Central Europe.


Fabio Silva, Christina Michel