Wurdi Youang

Wurdi Youang is an Aboriginal stone arrangement located at Mount Rothwell, near Little River, Victoria at .

The arrangement takes the form of an irregular egg-shape or ovoid about 50m in diametre with its major axis East-West. It is composed of about 100 basalt stones, ranging from small rocks about 20cm in diameter to standing stones about 1m high—some of which appear to be supported with ‘trigger stones’—with an estimated total mass of about 23 tonnes.^[1] There are three prominent waist-high stones, at its western end, which is the highest point of the ring.^[2] Other stones, located behond the ring are claimed to mark the positions of the setting Sun at the equinoxes and solstices. The straight sides of the circle are also claimed to indicate the solstices.^[3]

References

^ Ray Norris et al 2008, ICOMOS–IAU Thematic Study on Astronomical Heritage
^ 'Rocky ways to secrets of skies' Chee Chee Leung The Age August 2, 2008.
^ Wurdi Youang rocks could prove Aborigines were first astronomers, Andrew Carswell and Robert Cockburn, Daily Telegraph (Australia), 5 February 2011

Morieson, J. (2008). “The case study of the Boorong”, in Jonas Vaiškunas (ed.), Astronomy and Cosmology in Folk Traditions and Cultural Heritage, pp. 258–262. Klaipeda:Klaipeda University Press (Archaeologia Baltica 10).
Mountford, C.P. (1927). “Aboriginal stone structures in South Australia”, Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of South Australia 51, 169–172.
Mountford, C.P. (1976). Nomads of the Australian Desert. Adelaide: Rigby.
Norris, R.P., Norris, P., Hamacher, D.W. and Morieson, J. (2010). “Wurdi Youang—an Aboriginal stone arrangement with possible solar alignments”, Archaeoastronomy: The Journal of Astronomy in Culture, 22, in press.