The Stone Age Observatory.

It is well known that a lot of ancient constructions are oriented according to the cardinal points but not long ago scientists turned upon archeological monuments. One of their function was to observe the celestial bodies. The celestial bodies are studied by archeoastronomy - a new branch of science lying between astronomy and archeology. The ancient monuments studied by archeoastronomy had been used for observing the sun and the moon. These ancient observatory were the constructions of "horizontal astronomy", that is they marked the points of Sunrise and Sunset (they could not measure the hight of the celesting body over the horizon). Such constructions are noticed everywhere - in Europe, in Asia, in America and Africa.

Archeologists found a lot of stone constructions of such type. They are called megalits (from Greek "megas" - "great"; "litos" - "stone"). These constructions had been built more earlier then the first Indo-Europeans appeared in Europe and we can say that the builders of those megalits were the antient celtics. So in a stone age there lived some trades, related to each other, having the well developed culture. Those trades are called sometimes the megalits builders.

The Great Stonehang.

None of the giant ancient constructions were given so much attention as to famous and mysterious Stonehang. It may be justly called one of the first monuments to the human thought.

In the Middle Ages it was considered that Stonehang (from ancient English Stan Hangues - "Haning Stones") was set up by the King of celtic tribe of Britons in memory of battle against saxons. They say that Merlin - the greatest magician was setting it during one hight. But this is only a myth.

In 1771 John Smith the doctor carefully measured all the stones and came to a conclusion that Stonehang had been not only the Sun temple but even a calendar. He noted that there were 30 stones in one circle which was equel to the number of days in the Moon mouth. If multiplay it on 12 (the number of months) it becomes 360 corresponding to the number of days in the ancient Sun year.

Stonehang was a giant observatory built for observing the sun and the Moon moving. With help of it an important task was disolving that is detecting the day of summer solstice, when the sun arose above the Heel Stone celebrating the end of the year cycle.