Wurdi Youang: an Australian Aboriginal stone arrangement with possible solar indications (original) (raw)

ADS

;

• Norris, Cilla ;
• Hamacher, Duane W. ;
• Abrahams, Reg

Abstract

Wurdi Youang is an egg-shaped Aboriginal stone arrangement in Victoria, Australia. Here we present a new survey of the site, and show that its major axis is aligned within a few degrees of east-west. We confirm a previous hypothesis that it contains alignments to the position on the horizon of the setting sun at the equinox and the solstices, and show that two independent sets of indicators are aligned in these directions. We show that these alignments are unlikely to have arisen by chance, and instead the builders of this stone arrangement appear to have deliberately aligned the site on astronomically significant positions.

Publication:

Rock Art Research

Pub Date:

May 2013

DOI:

10.48550/arXiv.1210.7000

arXiv:

arXiv:1210.7000

Bibcode:

2013RArtR..30...55N

Keywords:

• Cultural Astronomy;
• Aboriginal Astronomy;
• Aboriginal culture;
• Geoglyph;
• Archaeoastronomy;
• Physics - History and Philosophy of Physics

E-Print:

Accepted by Rock Art Research