Illuminating Time: The Visibility of Temporality in Prehistory

Using the astronomical animation software of Stellarium, this chapter will demonstrate how time was ‘staged’ by prehistoric people at particular periods during the solar and lunar years. It will show how they ‘choreographed’ night- and day-lighting and landscape shadowing effects, along with the appearance and travels of other celestial phenomena in relation to the monuments and their horizons. It was this staging of natural lighting through illumination, brightness, luminescence, shine, gleams, glows, glare, and small points of light, and the opposites of all of these, that enabled their concepts of time to be experienced, shared, and acknowledged by prehistoric peoples.

Time. Lighting. Standing stones. Landscapes. Astronomy. GIS. Virtual reality. Britain. Megaliths. Stellarium. Horizon.