Under Stone Age Skies

There is undoubtedly some connection between Stonehenge and the skies. Almost 60 years ago, the recognition of alignments at Stonehenge with the rising and setting points of the Sun and Moon ignited modern studies of ancient and prehistoric astronomy. Stonehenge remains the poster child for archaeoastronomy, but its real astronomical intent is masked by the complexities of more than a thousand years of changing use. Despite these ambiguities at Stonehenge, other prehistoric monuments in Britain and Ireland tell a simpler but more compelling tale of stone-age astronomy. This presentation turns the celestial spotlight on other evocative antiquities with persuasive astronomical alignments and explores the motivations that may have been behind them.

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About Ed Krupp

Dr Ed Krupp is Director of Griffith Observatory, a public observatory and planetarium in Los Angeles, a role he has filled since 1974. He earned his PhD in the Department of Astronomy at UCLA, where he studied the properties of rich clusters of galaxies under the late Dr George Abell. He is now recognized internationally as an expert on ancient, prehistoric, and traditional astronomy, and has visited over 1,900 sites around the world of astronomical and archaeological interest.