* Astronomy

Spiro Mounds Archaeological Centre in eastern Oklahoma will conduct winter solstice walks Dec. 22.
The centre's nine ancient platform and burial mounds are part of an 80-acre site believed to have been occupied from A.D. 850 to 1450 by American Indians who were part of a Caddoan cultural tradition called the Southern Cult or Southeastern Ceremonial Complex.

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Spiro Mounds, Oklahomas only archaeological park, is a 140-acre site encompassing 12 southern mounds which contain evidence of an Indian culture that occupied the site from 850 A.D. to 1450 A.D.

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Two Galway Archaeologists have proposed a theory that one of the most common archaeological monuments in the Irish landscape may have been used for brewing a Bronze Age Beer. Billy Quinn and Declan Moore, two archaeologists with Moore Archaeological & Environmental Services in Galway, believe that an extensive brewing tradition existed in Ireland as far back as 2500 BCE. In an article to be published in Archaeology Ireland next month, they detail their experiments and research into the enigmatic sites that are the fulacht fiadh.
These monuments (of which there are approx. 4500), which present in the landscape as small, horseshoe shaped grass covered mounds, have been conventionally thought of by archaeologists as ancient cooking spots. However, Quinn and Moore believe that they may have also been used as breweries.

"We think that the fulacht may have been used as a kitchen sink, for cooking, dying, many uses, but that a primary use was the brewing of ale" - Billy Quinn and Declan Moore.

To prove their theory, Quinn & Moore set out to recreate the process. They used an old wooden trough filled with water and added heated stones. After achieving an optimum temperature of 60-70°C they began to add milled barley and after approx 45 minutes simply baled the final product into fermentation vessels. They added natural wild flavourings and then added yeast after cooling the vessels in a bath of cold water for several hours.
After just three hours of hard work and three days of patiently waiting for it to ferment the men enjoyed a pint of the fruits of their labour. Three hundred litres of water was transformed into a 'very palatable' 110 litres of frothy ale with minimal work.

"We were very surprised. Even a professional brewer we had working with us compared it favourably to his own. It tasted like a traditional ale, but was sweeter because there were no hops in it."

Through their experiments, they discovered that the process of brewing ale in a fulacht using hot rock technology is a simple process. To produce the ale took only a few hours, followed by a three-day wait to allow for fermentation.
Quinn and Moore point out that although their theory is based solely on circumstantial and experimental evidence, they believe that, although probably multifunctional in nature, a primary use of the fulacht fiadh was for brewing beer.

For additional information on ancient Irish beer visit www.mooregroup.ie/beer.

Source: Evening Echo News

At an altitude of 289m, the highest point in Sveshtari is the top of Golyama Mogila (Big Mound).
On the surface, literally, the tumuli seemed haphazardly arranged and random in size. Scientists, however, have noticed that they mirrored the brighter constellations such as Gemini, Eridan and Orion. The particular mounds here matched the Canis Major-which includes the North Star. Nedelcheva told us that these had been built by the Getae, a people whose exact origins and identity are still being debated.
No one knows for certain what they mean. Perhaps they are a depiction of Mother Goddesses that in turn represent the continuation of life, revival and bountiful harvests. Or they may symbolise the Getaes 10-stage cosmology cycle. With individual faces they may also be images of ladies in attendance.
Above the entrance to the chamber, a small, window-like aperture could be seen. Scientists have figured out that at precisely noon on 22 December (the winter solstice) at the end of the 300s BCE, the suns ray would penetrate this opening and, as well as illuminating the entire chamber, fall exactly on the king figure. Besides shrouding him in an aura, the light acted as a path for the mans soul to the heavens.

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About 2,000 years ago, a tribe of Indians in Ohio built a stone fence around the top of a hill. Nobody knows who they were or why they did it. Yet their structure still stands near the no-stoplight town of Bourneville, on a summit the locals call Spruce Hill.
The Little Wall of Bourneville isn't in the same league as the Great Wall of China, but it's an interesting specimen of the mysterious mound-building culture that thrived in North America long before settlers landed at Jamestown. Parts of that culture are preserved at places such as Hopewell Culture National Historical Park in Ohio and Effigy Mounds National Monument in Iowa. Yet much of it has been lost, either dug up by pot hunters and tomb raiders or ploughed beneath the soil by farmers who like their fields flat.

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