The North Mull Project (3): Prominent Hill Summits and Their Astronomical Potential

Ruggles C. L. N. Martlew R. D. , “The North Mull project (1): Excavations at Glengorm 1987–88”, Archaeoastronomy (supplement to Journal for the history of astronomy), no. 14 (1989), S137–49, pp. S147–8. Part Two appeared in 1991: Ruggles C. L. N. Martlew R. D. Hinge P. D. , “The North Mull project (2): The wider astronomical potential of the sites”, ibid., no. 16 (1991), S51–75.

Thom A. , Megalithic lunar observatories (Oxford, 1971), 66 and Figure 6.12.

Ruggles C. L. N. , “A critical examination of the megalithic lunar observatories”, in Ruggles C. L. N. Whittle A. W. R. (eds), Astronomy and society in Britain during the period 4000–1500 BC (B.A.R. 88; Oxford, 1981), 153–209, p. 179 and Figure 4.4.

Ruggles C. L. N. (with contributions by Appleton P. N. Burch S. F. Cooke J. A. Few R. W. Morgan J. G. Norris R. P. ), Megalithic astronomy: A new archaeological and statistical study of 300 western Scottish sites (B.A.R. 123; Oxford, 1984), Figure 7.4, no. 122.

Ibid., Table 7.1.

Ruggles C. L. N. , “The stone alignments of Argyll and Mull: A perspective on the statistical approach in archaeoastronomy”, in Ruggles C. L. N. (ed.), Records in stone—papers in memory of Alexander Thom (Cambridge, 1988), 232–50, p. 241.

Ruggles , op. cit. (ref. 63), Table 7.1.

Ibid., Table 7.1 and Figure 7.7, no. 131.

Ibid., Table 7.1 and Figure 7.5, no. 125.

Ibid., Table 7.1 and (for alignment cba) Figure 7.8, no. 133.

Thom , op. cit. (ref. 61), 67.

By this term we mean the moon at its most southerly declination in a particular month.

An excellent example is provided by the Sun Dance of the Plains Indians of North America. The Sun Dance ceremony was placed as near as possible to the summer solstice, but critically required a full moon. This was necessary to ensure that while the sun was setting in one direction, the moon would be rising in the opposite one. See Voget F. , The Shoshoni-Crow Sun Dance (Norman, 1984), 82.

Site numbers refer to Ruggles , op. cit. (ref. 63), where full descriptions and cross-references are given.

It is worthy of note that, of the two possible stone rows in the remainder of Mull, the one at Uluvalt (ML25), where all three stones are prostrate but the alignment is fairly well discernible, is also oriented upon Ben More. However, it is situated a mere 4 km away from the mountain, to its SE, and the peak yields a declination of more than +37°. See Ruggles , op. cit. (ref. 63), Fig. 7.10, no. 139.

See, for example, Allen K. M. S. Green S. W. Zubrow E. B. W. (eds), Interpreting space: GIS and archaeology (London and New York, 1990).