159
extended period lasting for at least a generation perhaps. These monuments share
many common features including hilltop clustering, emphasised entrance facades,
decorated structural stones, communal burial of adults and children, and deposition
of grave goods. The orientation and alignment of the chambers and passages is now
more fully documented and understood; some have solstitial astronomical alignment of the virtual axis while many more are found to face elevationally higher
focal tombs and related cairns.
Not far from the Boyne Valley lie Fourknocks I and II passage tombs, also in Co.
Meath. Cooney and Condit (2005) contend that the elaborate cruciform architecture
of tomb I, the incised megalithic art and the elevated setting and commanding views
of the landscape, suggest people in the Neolithic ordered their world, related to a
‘complex and fluid set of religious meanings’. Interestingly, and perhaps significantly, Fourknocks I, having an azimuth 7° and astronomical declination +36°, has
a distinctly northerly orientation, well beyond the limits of the lunar-solar arc of the
horizon. The field of vision from the burial chamber frames the prominent Cooley
Mountains in the same direction. Surveys of the island’s tombs by the author also
show that c. 20% of the sites with extant chambers and passages have their axial
orientations similarly facing the northern sky delimited by sectors the S1, S2 and
S3 in Fig. 4. The null hypothesis is that the observed data are sampled from a population with the expected frequencies. A simple two-tailed chi-squared test of the
relative frequencies of this phenomenon suggests (c
2
= 9.9, p = 0.04) that the data
are not from the same distribution and the null hypothesis is rejected. A focussed
discussion of any significance attaching to the horizon and sky beyond the lunarsolar arc is thus warranted, referencing culturally different ethnographic and archaeological sources which post-date the Neolithic. This strategy is backed by Jung
(1964: 58) who, writing on the manifestations of symbolic images perceived by the
senses (archetypes) in humans everywhere, agues these to be ‘without known origin’ and, more relevant to this discussion, ‘reproduce themselves in any time or in
any part of the world—even where transmission by direct descent or “cross fertilization” though migration must be ruled out’.
Early twentieth century ethnographic studies of the many societies inhabiting
Indonesia reveal that the ghosts of the dead, released by the smoke of cremation,
travelled in the direction from which the ancestors were believed to have come.
Locally, for the Tobada of Central Celebes, that direction was north, the land of the
dead (Perry, 1915: 145). A description of celestially-related orientation of the dead
in northern Italy documents how the body of an Etruscan ruler was laid to rest to
face the gods believed to live in the north (Rose, 1922: 135). Amongst the indigenous peoples of North America, the smoke from the fires of cremation were widely
thought to be a means by which the spirit was transported to join with the ancestors
in the sky and thus secure immortality (James, 1928). Similarly in North America,
the Omaha people had deep cultural ties to the sky and earth (Ridington, 1988). In
that culture, beliefs were emphatically symbolised in the architectural layout of
their dwelling structures. The Huthuga, a circular layout of their tribal villages,
reflected the Omaha belief system with the entrance to the complex facing east, the
direction of the rising sun. Adult males were categorised as Earth People and Sky
The North Sky and the Otherworld: Journeys of the Dead in the Neolithic Considered
extended period lasting for at least a generation perhaps. These monuments share
many common features including hilltop clustering, emphasised entrance facades,
decorated structural stones, communal burial of adults and children, and deposition
of grave goods. The orientation and alignment of the chambers and passages is now
more fully documented and understood; some have solstitial astronomical alignment of the virtual axis while many more are found to face elevationally higher
focal tombs and related cairns.
Not far from the Boyne Valley lie Fourknocks I and II passage tombs, also in Co.
Meath. Cooney and Condit (2005) contend that the elaborate cruciform architecture
of tomb I, the incised megalithic art and the elevated setting and commanding views
of the landscape, suggest people in the Neolithic ordered their world, related to a
‘complex and fluid set of religious meanings’. Interestingly, and perhaps significantly, Fourknocks I, having an azimuth 7° and astronomical declination +36°, has
a distinctly northerly orientation, well beyond the limits of the lunar-solar arc of the
horizon. The field of vision from the burial chamber frames the prominent Cooley
Mountains in the same direction. Surveys of the island’s tombs by the author also
show that c. 20% of the sites with extant chambers and passages have their axial
orientations similarly facing the northern sky delimited by sectors the S1, S2 and
S3 in Fig. 4. The null hypothesis is that the observed data are sampled from a population with the expected frequencies. A simple two-tailed chi-squared test of the
relative frequencies of this phenomenon suggests (c
2
= 9.9, p = 0.04) that the data
are not from the same distribution and the null hypothesis is rejected. A focussed
discussion of any significance attaching to the horizon and sky beyond the lunarsolar arc is thus warranted, referencing culturally different ethnographic and archaeological sources which post-date the Neolithic. This strategy is backed by Jung
(1964: 58) who, writing on the manifestations of symbolic images perceived by the
senses (archetypes) in humans everywhere, agues these to be ‘without known origin’ and, more relevant to this discussion, ‘reproduce themselves in any time or in
any part of the world—even where transmission by direct descent or “cross fertilization” though migration must be ruled out’.
Early twentieth century ethnographic studies of the many societies inhabiting
Indonesia reveal that the ghosts of the dead, released by the smoke of cremation,
travelled in the direction from which the ancestors were believed to have come.
Locally, for the Tobada of Central Celebes, that direction was north, the land of the
dead (Perry, 1915: 145). A description of celestially-related orientation of the dead
in northern Italy documents how the body of an Etruscan ruler was laid to rest to
face the gods believed to live in the north (Rose, 1922: 135). Amongst the indigenous peoples of North America, the smoke from the fires of cremation were widely
thought to be a means by which the spirit was transported to join with the ancestors
in the sky and thus secure immortality (James, 1928). Similarly in North America,
the Omaha people had deep cultural ties to the sky and earth (Ridington, 1988). In
that culture, beliefs were emphatically symbolised in the architectural layout of
their dwelling structures. The Huthuga, a circular layout of their tribal villages,
reflected the Omaha belief system with the entrance to the complex facing east, the
direction of the rising sun. Adult males were categorised as Earth People and Sky
The North Sky and the Otherworld: Journeys of the Dead in the Neolithic Considered