A Review of Three Examples of Archaeoastronomy at Ft. Ancient 2004

2004  A Review of Three Examples of Archaeoastronomy at Ft. Ancient

Paper presented at the combined 50th Midwest Archaeological Conference and the 61st Southeastern Archaeological Conference, St. Louis, MO., 2004

The author grants permission to reproduce text, tables, maps, or images included herein, provided that the author is cited as Turner, Christopher S.,  year of article, name of article, conference event and date if applicable to paper, page, and source, and provided that use of any text, tables, maps, or images included herein is for non-commercial, academic purposes.

Christopher S. Turner

2004

Abstract

            A review of calendrical sightlines suggested for the Ft. Ancient complex is offered. These include: 1) The Anderson Phase Kern Effigies as detailed by John White, 2) The Essenpreis / Duszynski sightlines as described for the north section of the Hopewellian Ft. Ancient hilltop enclosure, and 3) The heretofore unpublished results of my own research involving the parallel walls, or “avenue”, also associated with Ft. Ancient proper.  Interpretations of the astronomical veracity and the cultural implications of each will be offered and compared.

Introduction

Fort Ancient, the sprawling prehistoric earthwork complex in Warren County, Ohio, includes the multi-lobed Hopewell hilltop enclosure (33Wa2)(Figure 1), the outlying parallel-walled avenue and associated mounds, and in the river bottoms to the west, the geoglyphs called the Kern Effigies (33Wa372 and 373).

            In the last quarter century, archaeoastronomy has been brought to bear on Fort Ancient with mixed results, and I will examine the ways in which its current methodologies may be applied in interpreting this superlative multi-component site.

Ethnoastronomy has long been entwined with our interpretation of this ancient monument.  In 1874, L.M. Hosea speculated that the Ft. Ancient avenue was designed “...to obtain an unobstructed view of the sun in his rising...” and “...that upon this mound were conducted the religious ceremonies peculiar to the worship of the sun.” (Hosea 1874:294). Hosea’s ritual hermeneutic presaged that currently favored by archaeologists in interpreting the Ohio hilltop enclosures (Mainfort and Sullivan 1998). Though various authors have offered a calendrical use for the Ft. Ancient avenue, it was the late Patricia Essenpreis who first suggested it was a summer solstice index (Essenpreis and Duszynski 1989). As best as I can tell, she was largely correct, with some modifications.

By contrast, her calendrical claims involving the Ft. Ancient embankments and small stone mounds do not weather the scrutiny of archaeoastronomical methodology. Essenpreis championed the ritual precinct model in her 1984 paper Ft Ancient: Citadel or Coliseum (Essenpreis and Moseley 1984). It is a mystery to me why she focused on the equivocal embankment alignments instead of the avenue sightline, which surely answers to the ceremonial center interpretation more effectively.

Just a few hundred meters west of Ft. Ancient are found the Kern Effigies, two rock snake figures said to point to the solstice sunrises (Figure 2). These were both excavated and described in the 1980s by John R. White of Youngstown University. White’s premises seem to be convincing, with a few modifications. For instance, his insistence on the use of a gnomon pole is unnecessary. I will review White’s numbers and offer some new interpretations.

The Kern Effigies

            These two constructs in limestone are serpentine in form, one about 30, the other 45 meters in length. Discovered in the 1980s, the sites were excavated and reports published by John White (1986, 1987).

            Kern #1 was overlain with up to a meter of river sediment. Alluvial disturbance had distorted the effigy outline. Originally, this snake was probably a meter to meter and a half wide, and about 55 cm high. The graceful tail ends with flat flagstones mimicking a rattlesnake rattle (Figure 3). A charcoal date of 530+/-95 BP (AD 1420)(SI-6267) and a humate date of 765+/-80 BP (AD 1185)(SI-6268)(White 1986:150) reported by White suggest construction perhaps around the 13^th to 14^th century AD.

According to White, in June 1983 observations were made at dawn at summer solstice. As he noted, and as verified by my calculations, the sun does not rise in perfect alignment with the axis of the effigy. Perhaps in response to this non-congruence, White suggested the use of a gnomon to provide the necessary calendrical index. No evidence of a postmold for such a gnomon was ever found during excavations however.

            White’s assertions are generally cautious, but sometimes fly in the face of the evidence.  He wrote that “...the Kern effigy...aligns precisely with the summer solstice sunrise...” (1986:157), which it does not. The sightline is in error by 2.4 degrees, or about 5 sun-widths. Elsewhere, the author tacitly acknowledges this error by stating that the sun rose on solstice at 6:54 AM, but that its beams did not fall inline with the effigy till 7: 02.

            White wrote “As the sun rose over the next 38 minutes, the shadow moved in a westerly direction along the effigy’s tail.  At 7:40 the shadow reached the tip of the serpent’s tail...” (1985:154). However, as shown in his own illustration (1986:155) (Figure 4), the tip of the shadow does not follow the curve of the effigy. It curves completely the opposite way, describing a line that is concave to the south, not concave to the north.

The suggested use of the gnomon is unnecessary. Also, absent the post itself, any suggested height of the gnomon could arbitrarily satisfy any hypothesis offered.

            I made observations at dawn at Kern Effigy #1 in June 2003. Clouds and extant tree cover obscured a clear profile of the horizon as seen along the sightline. It is possible that rites associated with the Kern sightline were conducted atop the western flank of the northern enclosure of Ft. Ancient, the location of the horizon foresight. Moorehead described severe erosion in this area (1890:20-21), likely destroying any archaeological evidence of the calendrical use of this gap.

                         A scant 150 meters from #1, Kern Effigy #2 is nearly twice as long. Here the snake lies NW - SE, immediately suggesting to White an index for the other solstice, that in winter. In December 1985, this solstice was observed by White from the effigy. His photograph of the event (1987:239) shows the sun well above the horizon (i.e. several minutes after sunrise) when in line with the effigy’s axis. My data indicate it less in error than Kern #1, but it is still off by nearly four sun widths, or two degrees, at sunrise.

            To summarize thus far, Kern Effigy #1 points close to summer solstice sunrise. This sightline is in error by 2.4 degrees in declination, or about 5 sun widths. The effigy is so short, only about 27 meters long, that a shift at each end of only one-third meter would bring the sightline into accurate alignment. This amount of alluvial disturbance does not seem improbable. The gnomon proposed by White is not needed for calendrical purposes. The sightline as established by the effigy body is sufficient to mark any given azimuth . Further refinement of the sightline by using the horizon gap magnifies this accuracy.  I speculate that the effigy was located specifically to take advantage of this extant gap. It would seem difficult to argue otherwise.

            As a winter solstice rise marker, Kern Effigy #2 is in error by 1.9 degrees of declination, or about 4 sun widths. It too may have been specifically “aimed” at a visible gap along Ft. Ancient itself. Because Kern #2 is twice as long as #1, a lateral shift of 1.2 meters at each end of the snake would be needed to correct the azimuth error. 

            White speculated that Kern #2 might index summer solstice set looking the opposite direction along its length (White 1987:232). This sightline to the northwest is according to my calculations about 10 degrees from this sunset at solstice. This was a sensible hypothesis on White’s part, given the location of the tail on each effigy. At Kern #1, the viewer sites toward the “head” of the snake, whereas at Kern #2 the viewer sights toward the tail. White noted how the suspected tail at Kern #2 was found in disarray, making the notion problematic. It is interesting to contrast this relationship with the same elements at the well-known Serpent Mound site in Adams County, Ohio, where the summer solstice sun has been shown to set nearly along the axis of the snake’s head (Fletcher and Cameron 1988, Hardman 1985)(Figure 5). Carbon dates from Fletcher et al 1996 suggest that the Serpent Mound is roughly coeval with the Kern Effigies, further suggesting that this snake – solstice motif may have been intentional and pan-regional. Unlike the Kern examples, this effigy points to sunset. Like the Kern Effigies, the Serpent Mound sightline is also in error by a few degrees.

As reported by ethnographers, the Hopi intentionally bracketed the actual solstice date in this manner, in their case favoring a ten-day advance notice of the actual solstice date. Because of the sun’s lack of movement for four days at solstice, this method is actually more accurate at pinpointing solstice day. Additionally, it allows for advance prediction capabilities, and permits scheduling of ritual dances and ceremonies (Zeilik 1985:S16-S17).

The Essenpreis Sightlines

            Now on to the calendrical sightlines offered in 1989 by Patricia Essenpreis and David Duszynski. The authors presented archaeoastronomical analysis of sightlines in the north section of Ft. Ancient. As noted by Moorehead (1890:3), within the northern enclosure are four small mounds positioned to mark the corners of a square (Figure 6) . A small crescent earthwork and another outlying mound complete this group of features within the northern section of Ft. Ancient.

            Essenpreis and Duszynski posited these six loci as backsights, points at which the observer stands to make calendrical observations. Ultimately, only two of these points ‘worked’ in the author’s calculations (Figure 6).

Gaps in the Ft. Ancient enclosure embankments were suggested as sightline foresights. The argument immediately appears questionable. Nothing suggests the proposed mound-to-gap backsight-foresight combination over other mound-to-mound, or gap-to-gap sightlines. Since the entire perimeter of Ft Ancient is ringed with over 70 of these embankment gaps, it is likely that the occurrence of calendrically functional alignments would occur randomly. To compensate, the authors suggested that the enclosure embankments were abnormally linear in the area of the hypothesized foresights. This linearity was interpreted as indicative of a specialized use for this segment of the enclosure walls, that is, as calendrical sightline foresights. The argument, however, collapses on two points: topography (cf. Connolly 1998:106) and statistics.

            First, the watershed that forms the northern edge of the site, Randall Run, forms a ravine that itself is strikingly linear in its morphology. We can certainly expect straight embankments here. Linear embankments at other parts of Ft. Ancient have similar slope morphology, demonstrating their relative ubiquity (Figure 7). Also, the embankments bridging the neck of the isthmus are linear. Here at Ft. Ancient these embankments parallel the artificially terra-formed ravine features that flank the isthmus (Connolly 1996:267).

            Second, archaeoastronomical methodology is always reliant on statements of statistical likelihood. If we take the most lenient approach, following the interpretation of the authors and considering only the so-called “linear embankments”, and the gaps therein whose elevations exceed that of the backsight mounds, there are eight potential foresight gaps (Essenpreis & Duszynski 1989)(Figure 8). Six backsights and eight foresights represent 48 sightlines (uni-directional, i.e. for rising events).

The authors considered eight celestial events as ‘targets’: the four lunar extrema rises, the two solstice rises, winter and summer, and lastly the two Venus extrema rise azimuths. As calculated with a resampling statistics computer program (Simon 1990/2001), the combination of 48 possible sightlines and eight targets, using a one-degree sampling interval, yields a likelihood of about 17% for finding four sightlines as the authors do. This one-in-six chance is not considered statistically significant (Figure 9).

            Further, these results already represent the most liberal interpretation of the various embankment hypotheses. Considering the large number of gateways at Ft. Ancient and at other Hopewell hilltop enclosures, the linearity of Randall Run, the relative ubiquity of linear embankments, and the statistical result, these proposed sightlines are not convincing. Further, Essenpreis and Duszynski never tested for setting events. The authors could have attempted to establish similar sightlines involving more embankment gateways by testing for such setting events. These may have provided involvement for more than the mere two mounds out of the six features suggested as backsights.

           

The Avenue

            Lastly, we come to the Ft. Ancient avenue, the set of parallel walls trending northeast from the Twin Mounds at the northeast gateway of the northern enclosure.

            Hosea wrote at length about the avenue in 1874. He drew comparisons to other sites in the Scioto Valley, Florida, and Mexico, suggesting that priestly processions moved along these ritual pathways, performing solar rites at the crack of dawn. Oddly, in error he supposed it was equinox that was marked by the avenue, declaring the azimuth of it to be “…one or two degrees north of east…” (Hosea 1894:293).

In 1989, Essenpreis and Duszynski also wrote about the avenue. They cautiously concluded, as is true, that the avenue earthwork had been so degraded, and that the written records concerning it are so sparse and conflicting, that “...we cannot evaluate its use as an astronomical sighting device...” (Essenpreis and Duszynski 1989:6). They also suggested that the avenue points to summer solstice sunrise, with which I conditionally agree. The authors wrote that the parallel embankments “...seem to follow an azimuth of 57.3 degrees, [and that] this alignment falls within one degree of alignment for the summer solstice sunrise.” (Essenpreis and Duszynski 1989:6). 

            Written descriptions of the dimensions of the avenue have been particularly divergent (Figure 10). Length estimates have ranged from 1350 feet to nearly 1400 yards. Judiciously and conservatively, I had to select a best-fit of these figures in order to have data for archaeoastronomical analysis.

            Concerning the azimuth of the parallel walls, Essenpreis and Duszynski as mentioned cited a value of 57.3 degrees. To augment this figure, I measured the bearing of the landform upon which the avenue was presumably built. A gradual low ridge leads uphill to the northeast from the Twin Mounds, clearly defined on USGS topography maps (Figure 11).

Hosea provides some confirmation of this interpretation. Describing possible ritual processions along the avenue, he wrote “A train of worshippers, led by priests clad in their sacred robes...pass in the early morning...along the gently swelling ridge, on which the ancient roadway lies...” (Hosea 1894:295, italics mine).

By measuring from the center of the Twin Mounds and thence along the center of this ridge, I arrived at an azimuth of 58.0 degrees. This differs only 7/10 degree from the Essenpreis / Duszynski figure. I tested both of these numbers for calendrical importance.

To calculate the visual appearance of the avenue and its terminal lobular enclosure and interior mound, I used the following dimensions:

§     Length of avenue: 2950 feet  (899m)

§     Width of avenue: 60 feet   (18.3m)

§     Height of embankments: 4 feet   (1.2m)

§     Width of lobular enclosure: 180 feet  (54.9m)

§     Height of interior mound: 6 feet  (1.8m)

      Given these data, it can be shown that the overall apparent angular width of the lobular enclosure as seen from between the Twin Mounds is 3.5 degrees of azimuth. The model was checked for the Essenpreis/Duszynski azimuth figure of 57.3 degrees, and for the azimuth I measured on the map of 58.0 degrees. In both cases the sun rises well to the right (or south) of the avenue axis. It appears to have risen over the profile of the axially- offset lobular enclosure, and possibly over the enclosed central mound itself (Figure 12). The maps of this mound by Squier and Davis and by Moorehead place it at slightly different positions within the lobular enclosure. Moorehead, by the way, excavated this mound in the early 1890s, by which time it was only one foot (0.3m) in height. The mound yielded nothing, though it had likely been vandalized by this time (Moorehead 1895). 

            Even though Essenpreis and Duszynski suggested that the avenue was a summer solstice rise index, they were specifying the avenue axis exclusively. The authors discounted the use of the offset lobular enclosure as a foresight feature. They wrote “...the overall shape of the [lobular] enclosure, in which the end mound is situated some distance south of the line of sight defined by the [avenue] walls, makes such a use seem improbable.” (Essenpreis and Duszynski 1989:6).

Conclusions

            I have briefly discussed three examples of archaeoastronomy at Ft. Ancient. With Kern, John White described these effigies, dating them to the Anderson Phase of the Ft. Ancient Aspect, or the Middle Mississippian Period. White’s model of gnomon use, for which no postmold evidence was found, involves an arbitrarily chosen gnomon height and location. The hypothesized gnomon shadow in any case does not trace a unique pattern coincident with the effigy. Indeed, I would argue that the gnomon is superfluous, as the effigies themselves amply define sunrise azimuths.

            Considering both effigies, and the possibly coeval Serpent Mound, none define an exact sightline to the respective solstice events. It is possible these errata are due to geophysical feature disturbance. Alternatively, the effigies may have been intentionally offset from true solstice to permit advance prediction capabilities.

            Sightlines for both Kern #1 and #2 terminate along the western edge of the Ft. Ancient enclosure. With Kern #1, summer foliage makes this landform impossible to see in any detail from the effigy. These foresight areas could be experimentally denuded of tree-growth, as was likely the case if used as such in the past, increasing their visibility and allowing for hypotheses testing and operational sequence analysis of the visual sightlines in this proposed calendrical system. 

The location of the Kern #2 horizon foresight is at the so-called Great Gateway, the mound-flanked entrance to the south enclosure or “Old Fort” (Moorehead 1890). This enclosure in particular seems to have been favored by the Anderson Village / Kern Effigy peoples. Large numbers of human interments, apparently from this time, were located both interior and exterior to the embankment walls of the southern enclosure (Harper 2000). The symbology frequently associated with winter solstice sunrise, that of the sun ‘dying’ in its annual path, being reborn after solstice, may have informed the placement of the Kern #2 sightline. The liminality of solstice combines with the liminality of the Great Gateway as threshold to a mortuary compound. As seen from Kern #2, the sun “dies” over the south enclosure, rising over it only at the time of winter solstice.

            Having reviewed the sightlines proposed by Essenpreis and Duszynski, I find they fail under scrutiny. Only two mounds out of six proposed features worked as backsights. A limited arbitrary number of earthwork gaps (out of more than 70) were proposed as foresight features as based on embankment linearity. Such linearity is demonstrably unexceptional, and otherwise more simply explained. In any case, even if adhering to the Essenpreis / Duszynski model, the results are statistically non-significant by a wide margin.

            Lastly, I reported on analysis of the Ft. Ancient avenue. Using available data, I modeled the appearance of the avenue terminus, the lobular enclosure, and the enclosed mound as seen from between the Twin Mounds. According to these data, the summer solstice sun rose over the enclosed mound. Minimally, it appears to have risen somewhere over the lobular mound. Though these earthworks have been destroyed, it is possible that ground penetrating radar could pinpoint their loci and confirm the above model. Perhaps there are as yet archaeologically recoverable features or material that could shed light on this likely ritual use area.

            Though they are much shorter, the parallel embankment walls at Old Stone Fort in Tennessee are said to index summer solstice rise, and hence lend at least a modicum of corroboration to the Ft. Ancient example (Pearsall and Malone 1991).

            The ritual use of calendrical sightline pathways and horizon foresight areas has been documented ethnographically. The Hopi would send a young man from the Patki clan to journey seven kilometers on solstice, bringing prayer feathers to the distant shrine located at the horizon foresight area (McCluskey 1990:S2). Incan use of ceques and huacas demonstrate an important example use of such lines and shrines (Aveni 2000:118-134). From antiquarian times, speculation about Ft. Ancient has suggested the avenue as ritual calendrical conduit. Given this newest analysis, this former day notion may not be so improbable after all.

            Lastly, it may be significant that here we appear to have an example of the persistence of calendrics through over a millennium, from Middle Woodland Hopewell to Mississippian Period-Ft. Ancient-Anderson component times. Calendrical architectures have also been proposed for the earlier Adena (Clay 1986:589), perhaps suggesting even deeper regional historical continuity. This is not to say that the same specific lineages were at work, but rather that such calendrical technologies and traditions may have persisted locally. The geographical areas covered by the range of Adena, Hopewell, and Ft. Ancient manifestations in the Upper Ohio River Valley are largely identical, and the apparent persistence of calendrical technology in this area may be an index of a regional cultural cohesion and continuity. Indeed, the well-known Mississippian manifestations that were in their time the norm throughout the southeast US were not practiced in Ohio, at least before AD 1400 (Pollack et al 2002). Particularly there is no evidence in the Ft. Ancient cultural sphere of temple mound precincts or woodhenges, features with calendrical and cosmogonic traits unique to Mississippian. In this regard, it may be possible to use calendrics as another index of cultural complexity and identity, defining differences between coeval Mississippian and Ft. Ancient societies.

References Cited

Aveni, Anthony F.

2000      Between the Lines. University of Texas, Austin.

Brine, Lindesay

1894   Travels Amongst American Indians: Their Ancient Earthworks and Temples. Sampson, Lowe, Marston & Co. London

 

Clay, R. Berle

1986        Adena Ritual Spaces. In Early Woodland Archaeology, edited by

Kenneth Farnsworth and Thomas Emerson, pp. 581-595. Kampsville Seminars in Archaeology, Volume 2. Center for American Archaeology, Kampsville, Illinois.

 

Connolly, Robert P.

1996        Prehistoric Land Modification at the Ft. Ancient Hilltop Enclosure: a Model of Formal and Accretive Development. In View from the Core: A Synthesis of Ohio Hopewell Archaeology, edited by Paul J. Pacheco, pp. 260-273. Ohio Archaeological Council, Columbus, Ohio.

1997    The Evidence for Habitation at the Fort Ancient Earthworks, Warren County, Ohio. In Ohio Hopewell Community Organization, edited by William S. Dancey and Paul J. Pacheco, pp. 251-281. Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio.

 

Essenpreis, P.S. and David J. Duszynski

1989       Possible Astronomical Alignments at the Fort Ancient Monument. Paper presented at the 54^th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Atlanta, GA..

Essenpreis, P.S. and M.E. Moseley

1984        Fort Ancient: Citadel or Coliseum? Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin, June 5-26.

Fletcher, Robert V. and Terry L. Cameron

1988    Serpent Mound: A New Look at the Old Snake in the Grass.

                        Ohio Archaeologist 38(1):55-61.

Fletcher, Robert V., Terry L. Cameron, Bradley T. Lepper, Dee Anne Wymer, and

            William Pickard

1996    Serpent Mound: A Ft. Ancient Icon. Midcontinental Journal of

                        Archaeology 21(1):105-143.

Hardman, Clark and Marjorie H. Hardman

1985        The Great Serpent and the Sun. Ohio Archaeologist 37(3):37-40.

Harper, Brett

2000        New Perspectives on South Fort Village, a Late Prehistoric Site within the Ft. Ancient State Memorial, Warren Co., Ohio. In Cultures Before Contact: The Late Prehistory of Ohio and Surrounding Regions, edited by Robert A. Genheimer, Ohio Archaeological Council, Columbus.

Hosea, L.M.

1874        Some Facts and Consideration About Fort Ancient, Warren County, Ohio.

The Cincinnati Quarterly of Science. 1(4):289-302, October 1974.

McCluskey, Stephen C.

1977    The Astronomy of the Hopi Indians. Journal for the History of Astronomy,

            8:174-195.

1990    Calendars and Symbolism: Functions of Observation in Hopi   Astronomy. In the Archaeoastronomy supplement to the Journal for the History of Astronomy, 21(15):S1-S15.

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1997        Ancient Earthen Enclosures of the Eastern Woodlands.. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.

Moorehead, Warren K.

1890        Fort Ancient: the Great Prehistoric Earthwork of Warren County Ohio. Robert Clarke & Co., Cincinnati.

1895   A Description of Fort Ancient. Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly. 4:362-380.

Pearsall, James E. And Clyde D. Malone

1991        A Middle Woodland Solstice Alignment at Old Stone Fort? Tennessee Anthropologist 16(1):20-28.

Pollack, David, A. Gwynn Henderson, and Christopher T. Begley

2001        Fort Ancient / Mississippian Interaction on the Northeastern Periphery.

Southeastern Archaeology. 21(2):206-220.

 

Simon, Julian L.

1990   Resampling Stats: the New Statistics. (2001) Version 5.0.2, Resampling Stats Inc.

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White, John R.

1986   The Kern Effigy: Evidence for a Prehistoric Ft Ancient Summer Solstice Marker. North American Archaeologist 7(2):137-165.

1986        Kern Effigy #2: A Ft Ancient Winter Solstice Marker?

            Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 12(2):225-239.

 Zeilik, Michael

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Figures

	Figure 1           Fort Ancient as depicted in Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley by Squier and Davis (1848). The rough figure “8” outline encloses about 50 hectares. Note orientation and great length of the avenue (about 900 m), and the prominent Twin Mounds near its western end..

 

Figure 2           Schematic map showing location of the Kern Effigies relative to the main body of Ft. Ancient (from White 1986). The Little Miami River runs north-south through the map’s center.

	Figure 3           Plan view of Kern Effigy #1 (from White 1986). The “snake” is 26.8 m in length. Note “rattle” tail feature made of flat flagstones at left.
	Figure 4           The shadow from the proposed gnomon does not follow the curve of the tail. The two series of dots represent the shadow paths of a gnomon 4 meters or 7.8 meters in height. White selected these heights arbitrarily. (from White 1986)

Figure 5           The head of the Adams County Serpent Mound point toward the summer solstice sunset (arrow). Based on recently obtained radiocarbon dates, this effigy is possibly coeval to those at Kern.

 

Figure 6           From Essenpreis and Duszynski (1989) illustrating the nature of their proposed calendrical sightlines. Note four dots symbols representing mounds.

 

Figure 7           Topographic map showing linearity of enclosure embankments at Ft. Ancient (within ovals). Four of the six proposed backsights (mounds) are indicated as open circles forming a square in the upper right portion of the illustration (near word “museum”).

 

Figure 8           The authors suggested eight gaps as foresights (marked with black diamonds). There is no valid reason to ignore the other 60-odd remaining gaps, unless one accepts the “linearity” argument (see text). [from Essenpreis and Duszynski 1989.]

	Figure 9           Above is a partial printout from computer resampling results. In 16.4% of runs, 48 sightlines aimed at eastern horizon (hence 180 degrees) will hit any of eight targets 4 or more times. Five percent is usually considered the line demarcating statistical significance. The proposed sightlines miss this criterion by a wide mark.

Source                                           Length                Height          Distance Between Walls

Squier & Davis (1848)     1350 feet

Hosea (1874)                 nearly ½ mile                                         50 or 60 feet

Moorehead (1890)            2760 feet               1 foot                        130 feet

Moorehead (1894)            2760 feet            3 to 4 feet                 12 to 15 feet    

Brine (1894)               nearly 1400 yards      

Essenpreis (1989)        over 900 meters         1 meter                     20 meters

 

Figure 10           Table showing various divergent measurements cited for dimensions of the Ft. Ancient avenue, with units left as per original article.

 

		Figure 11           Topographic map of northeast segment of Ft. Ancient. The dotted line indicates the location of the now-eradicated avenue. Note the ridge feature upon which the avenue was presumably located.

	Figure 12           Calculated visual appearance of earthwork features at eastern end of the avenue (as seen from western end). The upper panel represents the Essenpreis and Duszynski axial avenue azimuth of 57.3 degrees. The lower panel represents an axial avenue bearing of 58.0 degrees, as measured from USGS map. The indicated location of the summer solstice sunrise is shown as based on standard trigonometry calculations for that date. Notice that the sun appears to rise over the lobular enclosure, and in both cases over the interior mound.

 

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