* Astronomy

An amateur archaeologist believes a giant boulder on a hill overlooking Loch Ness was used as a guide for crop sowing and harvesting by residents of in the Great Glen more than 5000 years ago. John Forsyth - who was voted a corresponding member of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland for services to archaeology - believes the boulder was positioned and sculpted so people could use it as a marker against the sun to signal when their crops should be planted in spring and harvested in autumn. He believes a community lived to the east of the boulder, which is between Creag Dhearg and Meall Fuar-Mhonaidh, and used the setting of the sun to establish the spring and autumn equinoxes - when day and night is roughly the same length.
As part of his research, Mr Forsyth used a global positioning system to locate another rock behind his home which lies directly east of the boulder and has the same latitude, suggesting an alignment which he thinks is deliberate. The retired geography teacher spent the spring equinox - Friday 20th March - photographing the sun setting to ensure his calculations were accurate.

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