The Carnival of Space no. 49 @ WillGater.com

The Carnival of Space no. 49 @ WillGater.com

Yet another edition of Carnival of Space is up, with its usual mix of fascinating posts, covering everything from GRBs and supernovae, to the recent NAM conference, and a consideration of how humans might be able to grow plants on the Moon.

Of particular interest - to me - was a post from Orbiting Frog, which looked at the astronomical context of a site in Alabama, known as Moundville, from which the following is an excerpt...

I recently had the opportunity to visit a place called Moundville in Alabama. Moundville is a prehistoric site of the Creek People. In this region, prehistoric means anything prior to about 1600 and the site itself dates from 1000 to 500 years old.

The region is a kind of large, flat park that has been cleared out from the surrounding woodland. A lovely grassy lawn has been allowed to grow all over it and so it is very pleasant. Almost startling as you drive up to the park are a number of large hills, rising abnormally from the flat lawn. These are the mounds for which the park is named.

Each of them could be mistaken for hills if they weren’t so square. If you imagine a rectangular pyramid with the top cut off not too far from the base, then you have the idea. The mounds are clearly man-made and when they were discovered in the woodland, archaeologists took a keen interest.

It is thought that they were constructed over many years, by highly organised, manual labour. In this respect they are like the many pyramids and mounds found in Mexico and Central America. However, they do not seem to have any cultural connection to these other sites.

All but one of the mounds are arranged in a north-to-south fashion. By that, I mean that the sides of the rectangles align to the cardinal points, such that each face of the mound faces north, south, east or west.

To read the remainder of the post, and indeed the other entries, you'll need to follow the links at top - and if you get through them too quickly, don't worry, because the next edition should appear within the next few days.