The universal standing stone

Here in the British Isles our ancestors were enthusiastic erectors of stone circles throughout the Neolithic and Bronze ages.

They went to enormous trouble to build them accurately so that they pointed at various celestial events at different times of the year. For example Stonehenge can be used to predict the time of the summer solstice. Here in the NE of Scotland our local speciality, the recumbent stone circle, is arranged so that the recumbent stone recumbent stone lies between the SSE and SW points of the circle. It is thought that this configuration was used for lunar observations.

Such difficult celestial calculations and accurate aligning of stones for different events must have severely taxed the minds of the locals. Then, in the late Neolithic, an ancient inhabitant of what is now Aberdeenshire, was sitting in his hut one night when he came up with a quite brilliant idea. Why not just erect a single stone, and then it will point at whatever you want, wherever you want, whenever you want! Isn't archaeological conjecture just the best fun ever?

The alignment is best observed using the Neolithic sextant.