270 



jVA ture 



[July 20, 1905 



fix 



m 



NOTES ON STONEHENCE.' 

 VIII. — On the Dartmoor Avenues {Continued). 



MY inquiries began at Merrivale because there is a 

 circle associated with the avenues a little to the 

 south of the west end of the longest ; and again nearly, 

 or quite, south of this there is a fine menhir, possibly 

 used to give a north-south line. There is another men- 

 hir given on the Ordnance map, azimuth N. 70° 30* E., 

 which, with hills 3° high, points out roughly the place 

 of sunrise from the circle in May (April 29). Although 

 this stone has been squared and initialed, I think I am 

 justified in claiming it as an ancient monument. 

 There is still another, azimuth N. 83° E., giving a 

 line from the circle almost parallel 

 to the avenue. I hope some local 

 achaeologist will examine it, for if 

 ancient it will tell us whether the 

 N. avenue or the circle was built 

 first, a point of which it is difficult 

 to overrate the importance, as it 

 will show the strict relationship 

 between the astronomy of the 

 avenues and that of the circle, and 

 we can now, I think, deal with the 

 astronomical use of circles after the 

 results obtained at .Stonehenge, 

 Stenness and the Hurlers as an 

 accepted fact. With the above 

 approximate values the date comes 

 out 1750 B.C., the declination of the 

 Pleiades being N. 6° 35'. 



I now pass on from Merrivale as 

 an example of those avenues the 

 direction of which lies somewhere 

 in the E.-W. direction. Others 

 which I have not seen, given by 

 Rowe, are at Assacombe, DrizzU- 

 combe and Trowlesworthy ; to 

 these Mr. Worth adds Harter or 

 Har Tor (or Black Tor). 



The avenues which lie nearly N. 

 and S. are more numerous. Rowe 

 gives the following : — Fern- 

 worthv, Challacombe, Trowles- 

 worthy, Stalldon Moor, Ballcr- 

 don. Hook Lake, and Trislis 

 Rock. Of these I have visited the 

 first two, as well as one on Shovel 

 Down not named by Rowe, and 

 the next two I have studied on the 

 6-inch Ordnance map. 



FerniL'orthy (lat. 50° 38'). — Here 

 are two avenues, one with 

 aziiTiuth N. 15° 45' E., hills 

 1° 15'. There is a sighting stone 

 at the \. end. We appear to be 

 dealing with Arcturus 1610 u.c. 



This is about the date of the erection of the N. avenue 

 at Merrivale. 



The second avenue has its sighting stone built into 

 a wall at the south end. Looking south along the 

 avenue, the conditions are azimuth S. 8° 42' W., hills 



3° 30'- 



Both these avenues are aligned on points within, 

 but not at the centre of, the circle. 



Challacombe (lat. 50° 36'). — This is a case of a 

 triple avenue, probably the remains of eight lOws, 

 in a depression between two hills, Challacombe Down 

 and Warrington. There is no circle. The azimuth is 

 23° 37' N.W. or S.E., according to direction. TTie 

 northern end has been destroyed by an old stream 

 work ; there is no blocking stone to the south on 



1 Continued from p. 248. 

 NO. 1864 VOL. 72] 



either of the remaining avenues, but one large menhir 

 terminates one row of stones. The others may have 

 been removed. So it is probable that the alignment 

 was to the north. If so, we are dealing with the 

 setting of Arcturus, warning the summer solstice 

 sunrise in iS6o B.C. To the S. the hills are 4° 48', 

 to the N. 4° 50'. 



To this result some importance must be attached, 

 first, because it brings us into presence of the cult of 

 the solstitial year, secondly, because it shows us 

 that the system most in vogue in Brittany was intro- 

 duced in relation to that year. In Brittany, as I have 

 before shown, the complicated alignments, there are 

 1 1 parallel rows at Le Menac (p. 99) (there 'Mere S 



5r lt«rr«)i> 



-ight-li, 



Ordn 



parallel rows at Challacombe), were set up to watch 

 the May and August sunrises, and the solstitial align- 

 ments came afterwards. The Brittanv May align- 

 ments, therefore, were probablv used long before 

 i860 B.C., the date we have found for Challacombe, 

 where not the sun rise, but the setting star which 

 gave warning of it was observed. 



It is worth while to point out that at Challacombe, 

 as elsewhere, the pries, astronomers so located their 

 monuments that the nearly circumpolar stars which 

 were so useful to them should rise over an horizon of 

 some angular height. In this way the direction-lines 

 would be useful for a longer period of time, for near 

 the north point the change of azimuth with change in 

 the declination of the star observed is very rapid. 



Sliovcl Down, near Batworthy (lat. 50° 39' 20"). — 



