Análisis estadístico de las orientaciones de los megalitos de la Península Ibérica

Abstract

Nowadays, we benefit from a huge corpus of data on the orientations of Megalithic monuments in the Iberian Peninsula. These data present similarities for several groups of monuments in different areas. Many of these groups present orientations compatible with astronomical events happening in the horizon. However, a sound interpretation is missing and would require a level of analysis without the inherent subjectivity in this kind of studies. The present article presents the application to this data set of the Principal Component Analysis (PCA). This technique allows us to group several areas of monuments according to statistical criteria. Later, several models are included showing that PCA is a powerful tool to discriminate among possible candidates for the astronomical orientation.