Posted on 02/13/2007 11:24:32 AM PST by blam
Octagon Earthworks’ alignment with moon likely is no accident
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
BRADLEY T. LEPPER
The Octagon Earthworks in Newark is one remnant of the Newark Earthworks, recently listed by The Dispatch as one of the Seven Wonders of Ohio.
Earlham College professors Ray Hively and Robert Horn demonstrated in 1982 that the walls of this 2,000-yearold circle and octagon were aligned to the points on the horizon, marking the limits of the rising and setting of the moon during an 18.6-year cycle.
The implications of this argument for our understanding of the knowledge and abilities of the ancient American Indian builders of the earthworks are astounding. But how can we know whether they deliberately lined the walls up with the moon or whether the series of alignments is just an odd coincidence?
In the current issue of the Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology, Hively and Horn use statistics to address this question.
And while they acknowledge that they cannot provide a definitive answer, their analyses certainly offer compelling evidence to support their idea that the sites are among the world’s earliest astronomical observatories.
Hively and Horn focused on five alignments. These are the main axis of the site, which points toward the maximum northerly rise point of the moon, and the orientation of four of the octagon’s eight walls, which align variously with the moon’s maximum southern rise point, the minimum northern rise point, the maximum northern set point and the minimum southern set point.
They performed a "Monte Carlo" analysis in which a computer randomly generates more than 10 billion equilateral octagons, randomly aligned them to a compass bearing and then checked how many astronomically significant alignments resulted.
They determined that, even "making the most generous plausible combination of assumptions favoring chance alignments," the odds that the alignments at Newark are merely accidental are about one in a thousand. Using more reasonable assumptions, the odds are more like one in 40 million.
This does not take into account several other lunar alignments incorporated somewhat more subtly into the earthworks. Neither does it consider the fact that Hively and Horn have shown that High Bank Works in Chillicothe, the only other circle and octagon combination built by the Hopewell culture, also is aligned to the same series of lunar rise and set points.
It’s a safe bet that these ancient Ohioans understood a lot more about astronomy than most of us have recognized.
Bradley T. Lepper is curator of archaeology at the Ohio Historical Society.
GGG Ping.
The moon is a moving body.
Clarification: the walls point at where the moon will be at certain intervals.
"Earlham College professors Ray Hively and Robert Horn demonstrated in 1982 that the walls of this 2,000-yearold circle and octagon were aligned to the points on the horizon, marking the limits of the rising and setting of the moon during an 18.6-year cycle. "
What significance would there be to an 18.6 year cycle? I can't think of one and I think the profs got off track on the logic of this. Just because the number fell out of their computer model, it doesn't make it plausible.
This may be amazing to people who live in small boxes all the time, getting fleeting "oh look, the Moon" glimpses once in a great while.
This should be no surprise regarding people who actually were outside most of the time, paid attention to natural events, took an interest in what is happening around them beyond man's doing, and were in tune with more than American Idol.
Some people were smart then, too.
Sheesh, you didn't even bother to Google it?
That's interesting. Why would anyone living inland care so deeply about the Moon's path? The Sun, I can understand. These were farmers and the Sun's location in the sky, and thus the seasons, would matter to them. If they were mariners, I could understand an interest in the moon; it affects the tides. (There's no evidence that they were sponge-monkeys, so let's not go there!) Perhaps they were remembering something that mattered to ancestors who knew the sea?
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http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1755951/posts
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Societies that spend more time outside than inside tend to rely more on lunar scheduling than solar.
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It's just as likely that they settled there long enough to become bored.
Learn something new everyday! The umass web page was interesting and understandable.
How about the fact that there was probably nothing else to look at?
When people have spare time, they do all sorts of things - like build 1/30 scale models of the Titanic out of popsicle sticks. ;-)
Are you telling us that they did it simply cuz they luv the moooooooooon?
In ancient times, there probably wasn't a whole lot to do after dark but watch the moon and stars and, well, certain other natural things. Which probably explains why common remnants of those times relate to the Moon and stars, and carved figures of women in fancy clothes.
It has been known for thousands of years that the lunar nodes rotate every 18.6 years and the lunar and solar eclipses with them.
"It has been known for thousands of years that the lunar nodes rotate every 18.6 years and the lunar and solar eclipses with them."
That's interesting.
"The implications of this argument for our understanding of the knowledge and abilities of the ancient American Indian builders of the earthworks are astounding."
Uh oh...what'd the good professor think the American Indian was an idiot?
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