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Field Visit
Date 2007
Event ID 558937
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/558937
NF 8427 6502 Sornach Coir Fhinn stands on a fairly steep slope immediately to the N of Loch Langass and is rare in having been built on an artificial platform; the stone ring is set on a level bay cut out of the hillside and the material excavated in this way was spread around the circle as a broad bank. A path leads to the site from the road (RCAHMS 1928, 83, no. 250). An accurate plan was made by A Thom (Thom, Thom and Burl 1980, 310-11: site H/17) and it seems to be partly built as a true circle with a diameter of 125ft; the arc on the southern (downhill) side is flattened. There are possible entrances at the ends of this arc. Various suggestions have been made about how the circle may be indicating short, calendar alignments to neighbouring sites (op cit: Ruggles 1984,102, site UI28) but none are very convincing. Yet the site’s position had obviously been carefully chosen and involved extra labour to construct.
The weather was fine and the air clear on a recent visit so it was possible to look for distant peaks which might mark accurate long alignments to sunrises or sunsets. Most of the horizon is only a few miles away but in the SE the landscape is particularly striking. The low hills Eaval and South Lee stand out, framing a stretch of local low ground between them. In that gap showed faintly two much more distant flat-topped mountains – MacLeod’s Tables on Skye – Healabhal Beag on the right and Healabhal Mhor, about 27 miles away. Just to the left of the latter, and showing even more dimly (almost vanishing before the end of the visit), was Glamaig, a conical peak also on Skye almost exactly 47 miles away. The azimuth from the stone circle to the top of Glamaig is very close to 122º and it therefore seems likely that the diameter of the true circle which forms the boundary with the flattened part was actually aimed at this remote peak, so that it is a genuine indicated alignment. It also seems likely that the reason for digging out the platform for the circle at this point on the hillside was to keep the top of Glamaig in view, together with whatever other nearer horizon targets, if any, were being aimed at. The astronomical declination of top of Glamaig is about – 16.5º so that, when the sun rises with its upper edge at the peak, its centre has a declination of from –16.7 to –16.8º; this would have been very suitable in prehistoric times for marking two of the ‘eighth’ divisions of the Thom solar calendar, namely the first and last Quarter Days of the year – at the beginnings of February and November respectively.
Some useful points emerge from this new discovery. First, how many more such long alignments, visible only in clear weather, await discovery? A Thom and CLN Ruggles between them have surveyed more British standing stone sites than anyone else, but they rarely comment on the weather at the time of the site visits. Obviously if a distant peak is recorded it must have been clear but it is unlikely to have been equally good when all the sites shown having only near horizons were surveyed. With present climatic conditions it must often be a matter of luck whether a vital distant peak is seen during a short visit.
The second point is that investigations of the astronomical qualities of standing stone sites should be a little more flexible. The irreducible requirement must remain of course: to be plausible a celestial alignment must include a direction indicator of some kind in the backsight which points at the horizon foresight. However, as with Sornach Coir Fhinn the landscape itself could often be giving us important clues about what the circle builders and stone erectors intended. There the distant mountains in Skye, framed between local hills, seemed an obvious potential sunrise foresight and an examination of the site plan showed that this direction was indeed marked.
The third point is that the discovery of the rarely visible yet indicated Glamaig sight-line surely points again to a better climate and clearer air in Neolithic times. Other rarely seen long sight-lines suggest the same, like those to Boreray in the St. Kilda group. The literature on the climatic deterioration in Britain between the middle Bronze and the Iron Ages is large but an essential point is that peat is repeatedly found to have grown over Highland archaeological sites of these earlier periods, marking the onset of wetter and cooler weather. A local example is Callanish in Lewis the stones of which were originally half submerged by about 5ft of peat. It simply will not do to argue from present atmospheric conditions that long alignments are implausible.
Mackie, E W, University of Glasgow, 2007
(RCAHMS 1928; Ruggles, CLN 1984 Megalithic astronomy; Thom, A, Thom, AS and Burl, HAW 1980 Megalithic rings)
Archive to be deposited with RCAHMS.