BACKGROUND

Ever since the very beginning in Cromlechpyrene I have tried to draw the attention of archaeologists and archaeological students to the fact that 'all Pyrenean stone circles represent stars'.
I have demonstrated this theory by means of decoding groups of stone circles the length and breadth of the Pyrenees. The examples shown to date have mainly been based on my own field work. Recently, in a short, principally bibliographical, study of Pyrenean stone circles -psc- in the Ossau Valley, I realised that, when good initial archaeological groundwork has been done, it was probably possible to astronomically decode the psc without even going to the site in question, a supposition kindly confirmed by the magnifi-cent work of André Müller: La nécropole en 'cercles de pierres' d'Arihouat à Garin -Haute-Garonne-, Editions Vesuna et Christian Chevillot, Périgueux, 1985.
The fact that the Pyrenean stone circle doesn't always have burial remains has led to the occasional consideration that they bear no relation to those which do. However, right from the very start of studying this site, I saw that, independently of the some 200 tombs, the stone circles described and drawn were similar to Pyrenean stone circles, and that the general layout of the southern sub-group showed obvious similarities to another group, thus pushing me to try and find matches with stars in the main circles of Arihouat accord-ing to methods tried and proven in other places.
The archaeological work which I had read to date had very few circles to prove the psc = star theory. Although two, three or five circles are a good number on the basis of which to make a decent astronomical comparison according to the laws of astronomy, they are not enough to prove my theory. However, Arihouat has a sufficient number of circles -approximately 50- to make this attempt. This would only be possible, of course, if my theory was correct and the circles had been deliberately built according to these laws.
The main virtue of Müller's work, for anyone attempting to make an astronomical comparison, lies in the reliability of his overall drawing of the site -Drawing 1-, ob-tained after careful excavation, as shown by the photographs and drawings accompanying the Müller's book. One typical problem on studying the psc in the field, is the fact that circles can be in such poor condition that it can be difficult to define them and their general layout within the group. Thus, thanks to Müller's research, Arihouat offers perfect condi-tions for an educated study. The only ´problem´ in going about this task was the same as generally or classically found when it comes to archaeological works, i.e. the lack of spe-cific information on the characteristics of the main witnesses, on their position within the circles and in relation to the landscape. However, good excavation work, above all, well explained and narrated, permits satisfactory astronomical decoding, raising no more doubts than those caused by the poor condition of some of the circles. André Müller's work on the Arihouat necropolis is a good example of this.

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