The Hurlers by Moonlight

The Hurlers triple stone circle on Bodmin Moor, Cornwall.

Here's a wintery view of the Hurlers under a bright Moon, looking North towards the bright stars of the Plough. The purple glow on the horizon is an unusually bright aurora, bright enough to be seen under Moonlight. Near the village of Minions, the Hurlers are a unique triple stone circle dating to the late Neolithic or early Bronze Age. The layout of the site could plausibly have been inspired by Orion's belt, one of the most obvious groupings of stars in the night sky, but this is speculative.

Plan of the Hurlers, the central circle is 138ft (42m) across.

Orion over Kit Hill, the line of three bright stars form Orion's Belt.

We know very little about the people who built these monuments, what they believed and how they lived their lives as they left no written records. But we can be sure they experienced the night sky in an immediate visceral manner, without modern light pollution and distractions. Certainly, various pre-historic sites on Bodmin Moor have been shown to be astronomically aligned. For example, when viewed from the Craddock Moor circle on the Summer solstice, the Sun sets directly above the highest hill on the moor, Brown Willy.

Looking at these ritual sites we get some sense of how ancient people attempted to make sense and impose order in their world.