Dear Chris,

I am not sure that this is so, I can think of many ancient observatories in the northern hemisphere - New Grange in Ireland, Stonehenge in England, Observatories where the Chinese emperor worshiped the Sun, the Ise Shrine in Japan, Medicine wheels (many hundreds of them) in the North American plains and Canada, Cahokia in current St. Louis, MO, the Pueblo and Navajo sites in the South west (many dozens of them) and many ancient sites in Mexico (most of which is in the northern hemisphere).

Perhaps in Europe, because of the fast changing landscape (socio-political) where phases of construction in cities happened many times, we don't find ancient sites where they once were.

Isabel Hawkins

Hi Chris,

I agree with Isabel, there are many sites in the Northern Hemisphere. As a matter of fact, in England, Scotland, and Ireland, it's hard to go anywhere without finding "stone circles", many of which were most certainly used as solar "observatories". While we have found many sites in the United States, many Native American sites have been destroyed (by Native Americans) so that the sites can not be "desecrated" by white man (and woman). But even in Greek and Roman times, the Sun was venerated (Helios/Apollo). The Egyptians, of course, worshipped the Sun as the God, Ra. Because the Sun is so important to life on Earth, it's hard to think of any civilization that did not build at least a temple for the Sun. Although not worshipped as a God, many medieval Christian Churches built a sort of solar observatory, which was used as a calendar. See http://www.math.nus.edu.s...aching/heilbron.html for pictures and more information.