Ancient Ireland: Newgrange, Part 1

On the highest point of a low ridge overlooking the River Boyne is the best-known archaeological feature of Ireland: the passage tomb and solar observatory known as Newgrange. The construction of this magnificent site began about 3370 BCE. Newgrange is the oldest known astronomically-aligned structure in the world. It predates the first stage of Stonehenge in England by a thousand years and the construction of the Egyptian pyramids by 400 years.

For more than a thousand years, Newgrange was the ritual focus of one of the most sophisticated societies in Western Europe. Then, about 2045 BCE, ritual activity at the site came to an end and the tomb was no longer maintained.

Newgrange is an example of a Neolithic passage grave which includes a roughly circular earthen mound under which there is a chamber and a passage leading to it. In Ireland, about 10% of the passage graves are oriented toward significant astronomical events.

The site occupied by Newgrange actually encloses the remains of an earlier tomb. This earlier tomb, which appears to have been made of turves, may have been 35 metres (about 115 ft.) in diameter [...] dailykos.com