Prehistoric sanctuaries in Daunia

TL;DR

This paper explores prehistoric sanctuaries in Daunia, highlighting their potential astronomical alignments and cultural significance, and suggests simulations to understand their possible celestial observations and effects.

Contribution

It presents new archaeological evidence of ritual sanctuaries with possible astronomical orientations and proposes simulations to explore their celestial significance.

Findings

Rows of holes indicate ritual use, not cultivation.

Possible astronomical orientation of sanctuaries.

Potential use of stars like alpha Centauri as targets.

Abstract

Daunia is a region in northern Apulia with many interesting archaeological sites, particularly of the Neolithic and Bronze Age. Beginning from the fifth millennium BC, the farmers living in the wide plain of Daunia dug hypogea and holes in sites that could be considered prehistoric sanctuaries. The characteristics of the rows of holes indicate a ritual use, and the archaeologists tend to exclude other applications, such as post holes and cultivations. The rows have possibly an astronomical orientation, and in the sanctuary discovered near Ordona, some stars of the Centaurus-Crux group (may be alpha Centauri itself) could have been used as targets. In past centuries, astronomers and scholars have remarked this spectacular region of the sky, and its possible relevance for the ancient civilizations was pointed out for example by G.V. Schiaparelli in 1903. In his work on the astronomy in the Old Testament, he mentioned in particular the observations of the astronomer W.S. Jacob and of other scholars. It would be probably worth to make simulations in order to reproduce the 'Jacob effect', that is the diffused light (a sort of faint twilight) produced by such very rich stellar region of the sky.