Talk abstract details

Megalithic monuments have been intensively surveyed and studied from the archaeoastronomical point of view in the past decades. Nowadays we benefit from a huge corpus of data for western Europe, especially thanks to the work by Prof. Michael Hoskin. We have orientation measurements for over one thousand megalithic burial monuments in the Iberian Peninsula, from several different periods. These data, however, lack a sound understanding. A way to classify and start to understand such orientations is by means of statistical analysis of the data.

In the present communication I will present results from such a statistical treatment of the set of data pertaining to the Iberian Peninsula. A first attempt is done with simple statistical variables and a mere comparison between the different areas. In order to minimize the subjectivity in the process a further more complicated analysis is performed. Some interesting results linking the orientation and the geographical location will be presented. Finally I will present some models comparing the orientation of the megaliths in the Iberian Peninsula with the rising of the sun and the moon at several times of the year.