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We have been openly critical of archaeologists and the way that archaeology is run – but we do have considerable respect for the good work that is done by so many people. At various stages of our separate and mutual researches we have made contact with many world-class scholars in the fields as varied as biblical studies, geology and astronomy. Most have been highly cooperative and some have become great personal friends. Archaeology has proved much harder to penetrate.
We are aware that the whole topic of ‘mysteries of the past’ has always attracted some odd people and there are some rather weird theories flying around. Academics cannot take the time to assess every new idea that is put before them – but some theories can quickly be seen to have more merit than others. Neither of us set out to form a new paradigm of ancient history but we were taken to it by evidence that presented itself.
When were working on our first joint book we contacted the world’s first professor of archaeoastronomy, now professor emeritus at the University of Leicester. We received a reply that he had read and enjoyed one of Chris’ previous books, Uriel’s Machine which, with significant contributions from Alan, first introduced the idea of the pendulum origin of the Megalithic Yard. This was a great start but unfortunately that was the end of the short relationship. All future attempts at correspondence with this particular expert have failed to solicit any kind of response. We even wrote to him pointing out that his important position surely made it a duty to respond at some level – even if it was to disagree.
We wrote to Aubrey Burl, a much-published digger of megalithic sites who, before retiring, had been a principal lecturer in archaeology at Hull College of Higher Education in the East Riding of Yorkshire. We received a polite reply, which stated that he had never ‘seen a Megalithic Yard’ as if it were a simple matter of taking out a tape measure.
Having had a very positive response from a range of mathematicians, a leading astronomer and a number of engineers after Civilization One was published, we wondered about approaching someone who had a generic interest in science and was used to reviewing new and challenging ideas. As previously mentioned, we asked the British Association of Teachers of Mathematics to look at the evidence we had uncovered and received a very positive response. We then decided to contact Michael Shermer, the American who founded the Skeptic’s Society, and is Editor in Chief of its magazine, Skeptic. Here was a man and an organization that specialized in challenging new ideas.
We sent a brief outline to Shermer and asked if he would like a copy of the book. The response came back quickly enough but it was rather strange. He sounded like a bored aristocrat, mentioning that he was rather enjoying sipping his fine tea on the lawn. The next thing we knew was a review of our book in Skeptic magazine.
Shermer had passed the copy of Civilization One to a junior freelance writer called Jason Colavito, a young man who, we believe, had become a born-again Christian before rather rapidly losing his newfound faith – causing him to be deeply resentful of all new ideas. The review was nothing short of witless and rather hysterical. He described the book and the ideas in it as follows:
Superficial and often unreadable because of a dense number of mathematical equations, the book commits the lust sin of popular literature: it is no fun to read. Crammed into just over 250 pages are so many unbelievable assertions and unproven speculations that it would take a book-sized rebuttal to do adequate justice to this triumph of numerology over science.
In other words, he had not been able to follow the basic sums (no equations except for technical appendices) and had found the subject matter too hard to get his head around. There were neither assertions nor unproven speculations in our book, as we had been especially careful to provide very solid evidence for everything we said. It was a pity that Colavito did not provide one single example of where we made unwarranted claims or where we had made an error.
Sad really – we are hungry for objective criticism and reasoned debate, but reviews of this variety achieve nothing but a diminished reputation for a publication that allows such poor journalism to exist within its pages.
In the summer of 2008 Chris was in northern Scotland in the company of Malcolm Sinclair, the Chief of the clan Sinclair and the Earl of Caithness. Malcolm has many henges and megalithic structures on his estates and he was very interested to hear about the work we were involved with. He suggested that we should make contact with Richard Bradley, a professor of ancient archaeology at Reading University, as he himself has a number of new ideas concerning henges. We duly prepared a briefing paper and sent it to Richard Bradley.
The reply was polite but less than encouraging. Professor Bradley pointed out some mistakes that Alexander Thom had made due to his inexact understanding of archaeology, but also gave the engineer some credit for opening up the subject. Bradley did not agree that Thom had been entirely ignored, saying that few archaeologists would now dismiss the idea of ancient metrology entirely. He confirmed that some re-analysis of the megalithic sites he had surveyed had vindicated a number of Thom’s claims.
But he did feel unqualified to comment on the calculations that are the basis of our argument, saying:
But you must appreciate that my grasp of the maths is rather tenuous, so I cannot comment on that aspect of your work.
We are very grateful for the response from Professor Bradley, and his admission that he is not especially numerical is fair enough – but if mathematics is a part of understanding the past, is it not time to extend the range of tools available to the discipline? Our challenge to find someone with the blend of skills necessary continues.
Because our civil-engineer friend, Edmund Sixsmith, believes that the work of Alexander Thom has been unwisely ignored – and he considers that the ‘Knight and Butler Symmetries’ deserve recognition and serious examination, he has invested a goodly amount of time in trying to correspond with the anti-Thom experts and seeking well-placed allies to take them on.
He wrote to archaeoastronomer Clive Ruggles saying:
I am writing a brief ‘biographical sketch’ article for the Royal Statistical Society magazine, which they plan to publish shortly, and I thought I should consult you in its preparation.
The article aims to be factual and non-controversial. In about 1,500 words it will summarize the story of Thom’s megalithic work, his ‘findings’ and the response they generated.
He received no response. A follow-up call to Ruggles’ secretary confirmed that he had received the letter. We believe him to be a charming and extremely bright man and do not expect him to reply to unsolicited letters from the public, but Edmund felt this was a disappointing performance in the circumstances. It is clear that the professor would like everyone to regard the case as being closed.
Edmund found Aubrey Burl an excellent letter-writer and unfailingly courteous. One day he had a telephone conversation to follow up some queries about past Megalithic Yard research work. Burl was forthcoming about the work and believes that while regional yardsticks were used (a Perth Yard, a Boyne Yard, etc.) there was no single precise unit. He admired Thom’s prodigious output of surveys but disagrees with his conclusions. Edmund was curious to find out how Burl dealt with statistics. Had he acquired statistical expertise himself? Or had he engaged a statistician to assist him in the work, and if so who? The answer was – neither. Aubrey Burl had led the team and relied on his own measurement, arithmetic, logic and intellectual abilities.
The academic Thom debate seems to have ended in 1999 when Clive Ruggles banged the final nail in the coffin of the Megalithic Yard as an accurate unit. He concluded his judgement by saying ‘for a thorough statistic critique the best source, once again, is Heggie’.1
Edmund’s new step was to approach Douglas Heggie, who is professor of mathematical astronomy at Edinburgh University. This proved to be much more fruitful. Asked, by email, where he stood on the Megalithic Yard, the distinguished professor replied that his main approach had been to question the supposed accuracy of the Megalithic Yard rather than the concept itself, which he said survives in some rather elusive form. However, Professor Heggie was open about the fact that he did not consider himself to be expert in statistical analysis.
Edmund responded by saying that he had taken it that Heggie was the key expert and that he was a little surprised to hear his modesty about his statistical expertise. Heggie confirmed that there was nothing particularly expert about his discussion of the Megalithic Yard. What he had sought to do in his book, Megalithic Science, was to marshal the kinds of suspicions that any scientist would consider when faced with apparently strong statistical evidence for a new hypothesis.
Douglas Heggie has been totally honest and, of course, has acted entirely properly. But this does splendidly illustrate the way that the processes used within academia can create a situation where everyone cites everyone else in criticizing an unwanted theory. Follow the audit trail back far enough and there is some good quality debate but nothing that could be said to prove Thom wrong.
This is the root of the problem.
Aubrey Burl had once declined even to look at our findings on the basis that ‘because we had started with an error (the Megalithic Yard) all our further work was nothing more than a compounded error’. If, as they say, all progress is due to the unreasonable man, then we could also observe that all progress can be halted by the man who believes that he knows too much to need mere evidence.
We cannot stress how incredibly difficult it is to gain an intellectual foothold with new ideas, even when they do not challenge any generally accepted facts. But what we have challenged – head on – is the veracity of certain embedded ideas of what the Neolithic peoples of northwestern Europe could and could not have achieved. To suggest that they understood complex matters such as the spherical nature and dimensions of the Earth, Moon and Sun is written off as wrong, without the tedious necessity of considering new evidence – especially when that evidence requires some new skills for many archaeologists.
Edmund is not easily put off his mission and he continued to try and find a way to bring our discovery of a beautifully integrated system of measurement from deep prehistory to the attention of an intelligent, numerate audience. As a next stage he sent a letter to New Scientist magazine. This excellent weekly publication had run a cover feature in its 31 January 2009 issue under the title ‘Six mysteries of the solar system’. This prompted Edmund to write them a letter entitled ‘Earth Symmetries and Mysterious Mnemonics’. The letter, shown below, introduced the magical 366 system in a way that let the concept stand by virtue of its own remarkable qualities.
Dear Sir,
Every schoolboy knows that the Earth goes round the Sun at 1/10,000 the speed of light.
There are six less-well-known mnemonics concerning Earth, Moon and Sun. The mnemonics depend on two integers M and N, and a unit of length L.
Earth’s polar circumference is M2N units
The Moon’s polar circumference is 100 MN units
The Sun’s circumference is 40,000 MN units
You could work out M very quickly. It is 366. (The ratio of the size of the Earth to the Moon is 366:100. Given that the Earth makes that number of sidereal spins in a year (to the nearest integer) you might think that is a nice number. Or days in a leap year.
N times the unit of length is not a very pretty number but if we – quite arbitrarily – take N as 360 it gives the unit of length as 2.722 ft.
Obviously 360 is a very friendly number formed by the first three primes 2 × 2 × 2 × 3 × 3 × 5
So far so good, but nothing very remarkable given the ratio of Earth, Moon and Sun is 366:100:40,000
One thing that is rather nice is that the unit of 2.722 ft is not just any old number. If you stick 2.722 ft into Google it will tell you it is a unit called the Megalithic Yard. It was ‘discovered’ 40 years ago by Prof. Alexander Thom. He was unaware that the Earth and Moon could be divided up so neatly (into ‘pigs’ like an orange) using his unit.
We have a set of mnemonics for someone who is capable of remembering the number 2.722 feet, but this is nothing very scientific or spectacular.
The next three mnemonics are however a bit of a surprise to some people.
Every 10,000 days the Moon turns M times in relation to the stars.
If a temperature scale is defined with water’s freezing point as zero and boiling point as M°, absolute zero is minus 1,000°.
The mass of the Earth is MN X 1020 imperial pounds.
Mighty odd.
Using data overleaf you can check these on a calculator. These three are each accurate to within much better than one part in a thousand.
It is all a bit weird.
New Scientist gets a thousand letters a week from all over the world, and publishes fewer than ten and they did not publish this one – it seems probable that no one got around to reading it carefully as it looks very odd at first.
However, Edmund had more success with Significance magazine, which is published on behalf the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Its circulation of 6,000 reaches those people in Britain who are most interested in statistics and the analysis and interpretation of data. It seemed a good prospect for Edmund’s campaign.
The editor of Significance sees a lot of fringe material and was initially sceptical. But when given a calculator and guided through the improbable properties of the Megalithic Yard, he said that he would ‘have to think about it in his bath’. He did so, and a week later he agreed to publish something. At the time of writing he is trying to work out with Edmund how best to arrange and present the story of Thom and his Megalithic Yard and the neatly nailed-down coffin in which they rest.
What better group of readers to judge whether the Knight and Butler Symmetries deserve recognition? The Symmetries may not be explicable, they may be weird, but statisticians are well placed to judge if they are a series of freakish coincidences or an inconvenient fact. Call us optimists, but we think that Thom’s work will eventually be rehabilitated – and our own work absorbed into accepted knowledge.
Chris, who is a regular reader of New Scientist, came across a particularly interesting letter to the publication reproduced in June 2008. The letter penned by James Russell of County Antrim in Northern Ireland referred to an article the previous month:
You quote Colin Renfrew’s ‘sapient paradox’ that while the human brain has changed little genetically in 60,000 years, behaviour changed suddenly 10,000 years ago. Renfrew will no doubt be basing his view of human behaviour on an archaeological doctrine that if no evidence exists on land, then none exists.
I put it to him that it is no coincidence that 10,000 years ago is also when the last ice age ended and sea level underwent its last major change. Any evidence of structures, however substantial, built in northern Europe before then would have been scraped into the sea by the ice; and any less than 60 metres above the then sea level would now be under water. Had there been an interglacial Stonehenge, there would be no evidence of it now.
An archaeologist in 10,000 years’ time, examining a map of the UK above the present 60-metre contour, would conclude that we had no major towns, no nuclear or thermal power stations, no long-span bridges, no parliament, no politicians … in fact, that we were hill farmers with a sideline in electricity from windmills. The paradox disappears if human behaviour did develop gradually over 60,000 years, but all evidence of this development is now erased.
Here was a kindred spirit. Here was someone who was using his common sense and was not afraid to challenge even archaeologists of quality and standing such as Colin Renfrew. Chris attempted to find out more about James Russell and see if he could make contact with him.
Chris found a man by the right name in the right location and sent an email to see if he was the author of the New Scientist letter. A reply came back straight away:
Dear Chris,
You’ve got the right James Russell, I am a civil engineer working in the piling business, so the Earth and its strata are of interest to me. I see the materials laid down over thousands of years every day and have to decide on its qualities as foundation material.
The letter in New Scientist was edited due to space limitations on their letters page, and may have come across more blunt than was intended. The missing paragraphs explained the logic of my argument.
‘During the last ice age (10,000 yrs B.P.) human activity would have been on lands much nearer the equator. The British Isles and northern Europe were under ice and the sea level was 200 ft lower than today. Temperature falls by 3 degrees every 1,000 ft elevation, rainfall erodes mountains and rivers carry nutrients to river valleys and coastal areas. In coastal areas, river valleys and flood plains, crops thrive due to fertility, moisture and heat, wildlife prospers. Humans would have led easy lives near sea level, with good supplies of plant and animal food.
‘Had civilizations developed during this glacial period they could not have been on what is now the British Isles due to the ice, they are bound to have been nearer the equator, and, as a consequence of the above argument, near the then sea level. Even today our major cities, most of our infrastructure and the lifeblood of our civilization – our electricity generating plants, are situated near sea level…’ Hence the reference in the letter to the power plants and infrastructure.
The point of my letter was that Colin Renfrew had made the perfectly reasonable logical deduction that there is always a steady development process, and that this could also apply to the functioning of the human brain, and consequently the development of civilizations. My impression of the article was, he appeared to argue that the sudden appearance of cities and complex civilizations should have been preceded by examples of progressive development, which have not been found. He then proceeded to rubbish his own correct intuitive idea, by saying that there were no artefacts to support his hypothesis. My suggestion was, to consider that due to climate change the artefacts, perhaps as big as cities, could well be under the sea.
I am off to work now, but I leave you with the thought that archaeologists will find very few artefacts dating back more than 10,000 years until they put on their scuba gear. Even then, those artefacts will have been disturbed by wave action as the sea rose, or by trawler fishing, or buried by deposits on the ocean floor.
It turned out that Jim Russell is a chartered civil engineer who understands issues about the nature of the Earth’s surface, having patents for piling equipment. Chris responded by explaining our area of interest, and adding that we have always found engineers to be intelligent (in the rich sense of the word) and open-minded. The email we received in reply was extremely encouraging:
Your observation that a civil engineer would be open to evidence and discussion I consider to be bang on target. Engineers in general are educated to observe the situation, process the information and propose the best idea, generally without a predetermined bias toward a solution.
I developed and patented a piling and a pile-testing system which the established contractors said would never work, and have had 25 very successful years doing subcontracts and testing piles for those same people.
I am certainly willing to converse on your subject. Perhaps a fresh mind with a different background may make an observation or suggest a different approach to your work which would be beneficial.
This was welcome news and the next part of Jim’s email demonstrated that he was a free spirit, unbent by the niceties of scientific convention. He was asking all kinds of ‘unreasonable’ questions:
I watched part of a programme on the Greenland ice sheet cores a few nights ago, that, and the deep sea mud cores seem to be the only deposits which would span ice ages uninterrupted. Techniques for air analysis are remarkable. Would there be any telltale changes in air quality from human activity? In the mud samples is there any indication in the pollen count from agriculture or plant breeding or unexplained intercontinental transfer of human food crops? Has anybody looked?
All areas of the continental shelves below today’s sea levels would have been in the tidal zone for some time as the sea gradually rose, and subject to wave destruction. Present-day sea defences built with modern materials are often destroyed in a few years by wave action. What chance is there of very ancient structures surviving? There may be a few places in the world where tectonic plate movements submerged civilizations in a short enough timeframe for the wave action not to have been totally destructive. A journalist by the name of Graham Hancock has been working in this area, and has some interesting observations. Once again, as he is not establishment his ideas are overlooked, I believe they need serious consideration.
Chris replied that Graham Hancock was a friend whose ideas were becoming more important to us as time went on. Having dinner with Graham many years ago Chris (as a scuba-diving instructor himself) had offered to train Graham prior to his underwater investigations of possible ruins off the coast of Japan and in the Indian Ocean. We will return to the subject of Graham Hancock’s theories a little later in this book. We sent Jim a briefing of our key findings regarding the Megalithic Yard, pendulums and Neolithic astronomy. He replied that he had never heard of the Megalithic Yard, but it was clear that his engineer’s brain was having no difficulty in understanding the issues involved.
With any length of pendulum and any unit of measurement, a few bits of wood, a few lengths of string, a bit of patience and fairly good eyesight, a megalithic engineer could easily have approximated the circumference of the Earth. If I can demonstrate that it works, it moves your proposal of their knowledge of Earth circumference from ‘impossible’ to ‘possible’, it will then be up to you to take it through ‘probable’ and on to ‘definite’.
If I wanted to study the movement of the planets and stars without modern instruments I would need a fixed point from which to make measurements. I would need middle-distant reference points to check the star and planet movements against an artificial horizon. Ideally I would be within shouting distance of my assistant placing the reference points 360 (or 366) degrees around my reference point (right a bit, left a bit, SPOT ON).
The points would be on a similar scale to the object star so I could detect tiny variations, maybe illuminated by candles placed in marks.
Ideally my eye would be at the same level as the circle of reference points on the Artificial Horizon (A.H.) …
Jim’s intellectual identification of the need for an artificial horizon was very important indeed – because we had not told him about henges. And we have long argued that most, if not all henges were created as artificial horizons! Just like Alexander Thom, here we had an engineer who had sufficient empathy with this Neolithic problem to reconstruct the same solution some 5,500 years later. He even went on to describe the size and usage of the henge in human terms:
It would function by me sitting at the centre and observing the stars and planets as they appeared above in the east and set below my A.H. in the west. I could mark the A.H. and record and variations. I could count the swings of my pendulum between the rising and setting of known fixed stars and the wandering ones, and eventually plot and understand their movements across the sky.
Next Jim began to ‘predict’ the move from henges with wooden poles to stone or megalithic structures – exactly as it happened in prehistory.
A wooden structure might ‘do me my day’ but if observations were to continue beyond one or two lifetimes the wooden structure would move through shrinkage and rot and become useless as a reference point.
My descendants would have to think again, massive stone would be the only material to scaffold an A.H. which would look over the vegetation and be stable enough to observe down through the generations. My descendants would be confident many generations of observers could stand or sit at the centre with the fixed point really rigid on a stone tripod and the A.H. would be as rigid as possible. My wooden (easy to mark) A.H. could sit on the stone scaffold; if it rotted they could make a small copy segment and replace the A.H. reference ring only.
Jim has proved to be a very valuable asset to our enquiries because he has lots of knowledge about engineering but no preconceived ideas about archaeology. Most archaeologists are the product of university departments that take their students in straight from school, and then proceed to test them on their ability to absorb the standard world-view of the past. If you want a good degree it is essential to be able to recite accepted idea. Even postgraduate studies expect close conformity to standard protocols and incremental advancements based on accepted wisdom. The next email from Jim highlighted his fresh, logical thinking:
I cannot believe how close to a perfect basis for a sky-monitoring instrument Stonehenge would be. Any (TV) programmes I have seen involving it look at it from ground level as a place of worship. If I were living on UK mainland in the Neolithic period, and requiring an observatory, it would be located in the south to cover as much of the sky as possible. I would see that with a little timber modification I could superimpose a timber artificial horizon on the perimeter stones and indulge myself in a little stellar and lunar observation. The payoff would be, with eclipse prediction knowledge and the implied power over nature, I would wield enough power over the masses worshipping my chosen god down below to keep improving my scientific instrument and keep me in a style to which I would have become accustomed. (Using religion as a tool of submission is primitive compared to AK47s, famine and chemical weapons used in our modern developed civilization!)
Stonehenge fits my engineering requirements, but there may be other requirements such as visibility of the horizon, or local weather conditions 4,000 years ago, which may make the proposal inappropriate. Every option should be examined with an open mind.
Much of the thought process develops by association and discussion; if my suggestion is false, the idea may inspire someone else to offer a better one.
Perhaps I am covering old ground here, but I have never seen this solution to the function of the building before. Is this old material or is it something new?
This was music to our ears!
Of course, Jim is just another deluded engineer like Thom, as far as some archaeologists are concerned. But we believe that this ‘back to basics’ is appropriate for prehistoric periods such as the British Neolithic.
Jim then began to refine his thinking, as the complexities and possibilities occurred to him:
My ancient engineer would have realized after a couple of nights that the celestial sphere axis is spinning around the North Star, and that axis is tilted with respect to the horizon. A vertical pole in the north side would sweep the northern sky and allow measurements in that sector. My ancient henge could be modified in timber to achieve this.
Next Jim’s thought processes caused him to ask a significant question:
Does ancient astronomy always seem to be based on Earth horizon events, or could it have been leaning towards what NASA spends millions on today; early warning of Earth impacts from anywhere in the sky? If an ancient civilization had been traumatized by an Earth impact when they had seen a short-term warning in the sky, it could have encouraged the building of an observatory.
Like us, Jim found it hard to believe that people have not understood the basic working of the Sun, Moon and Earth for a very long time indeed. The light pollution we have in our modern built environment prevents most of us from even noticing the sky at night, whereas Neolithic man would have been much more in tune with, and much more observant of, the natural environment than we are today.
Watching the way the Moon is illuminated, sometimes before the Sun goes down, makes it difficult not to see the Moon as a sphere lit up by the Sun. We have long suspected that the period when people thought the Earth was flat was a short-term regression when dumbed-down religion became more politically powerful than science. (Unfortunately we are seeing a mini-resurgence of superstition trying to overtake scientific reason in some quarters, particularly in parts of the United States.)
Jim came to the same conclusion, giving an example of how the effects might have been noticed with everyday objects such as a round ball of clay – such as we believe was used for pendulum weights.
He suggested that if Neolithic astronomers had placed such a ball of clay between their index finger and thumb, and then revolved it around at arm’s length, as though to inspect its accuracy, they would have noticed certain things. During the day they would only see the ball, but at night with a single source of light, such as a campfire, they would see a miniature model of the Earth, Moon and Sun system, and the phases of the Moon in the shadows on the surface of the ball.
Spinning it around in the right plane they could even see the ball eclipse in the shadow of the head, and even the campfire eclipse behind the ball. This would also work if they had walked around an object like a fruit hanging on a tree. Is it too far-fetched, Jim asks, to imagine a Neolithic man 4,000 years ago with a clay ball or fruit in his hand doing exactly this, and noticing the similarity between the shadow on the stone and the shadows on the Moon, and the eclipses?
Jim was going through rather similar stages of thought as we had covered in our own questioning – but with an engineer’s insight. He raised the possible use of water in henges, which is an idea that has fascinated Chris for some time for two reasons: First, because it provides a quick and foolproof way of identifying a perfect level (just as a spirit level does today); and secondly, because it provides a perfect mirror to reflect the stars, which would aid alignments over a short distance. But Jim, who knew nothing of the possible use of water in henges, went further. He emailed saying:
Use of the natural profiles of the horizon places severe limitations on the accuracy of observations of horizon events. Vegetation growth on far-off horizons, or between the observer and the horizon, leads to inaccuracies. The significance of the use of water as a datum for establishment of a truly level plane of observation seems to have been overlooked in archaeology. In its simplest form, consider an observer (with good eyesight) on a platform in the middle of a small lake, with a pole at eyelevel. Consider a series of poles set in a circle, with horizontals set between the pole tops, say, 6 metres away (further means more accuracy) and exactly the same distance above the water. Lining up, by eye, the centre pole and the top of the outer poles produces a horizontal-plane-of-sight instrument, comparable in accuracy with optical levels used on building sites today. Sightings could be made far beyond the perimeter of the circle, even to the stars. The same instrument made from water and wood, used after dark, could monitor ‘artificial horizon’ events with great accuracy by marking the perimeter rail. Replace the lake with an artificial lake in a trench on dry land, stick a few poles in the trench, and you have the makings of a henge. The centre pole could be set later by sighting across the perimeter without water anywhere near the middle.
However, Jim was not quite right, insofar that a small number of archaeologists have identified water as being present in some, if not most, henges. But because they have not thought of henges as astronomical instruments they have missed the importance of this feature entirely.
Jan Harding, the henge expert from Newcastle University who has done so much good work at Thornborough, has said:
Henges are generally located in low-lying positions, on the floor of natural bowls or valleys, and many are sited in close proximity to water … There are also instances where henge ditches may have contained water for long periods over the year.2
Colin Richards of the University of Manchester, who specializes in Neolithic archaeology, architecture and monumentality, and ethno-archaeology, has suggested that archaeologists have misconceived the visual appearance of henge monuments – most particularly the probability that the enclosure ditches involved with henges were created as receptacles for water.3
But both Harding and Richards attribute the water to the religious or spiritual needs of the henge builders – some part of the notion that these were very unsophisticated people who built superb structures to carry out religious practices of some unspecified variety. Richards says that he wishes to focus attention on the importance of the ‘social constitution of nature and landscape’.
The problem is that there are no written records to confirm what these structures were used for, and it is like trying to complete a complex jigsaw puzzle with a handful of pieces.
Having identified a need for still, standing water, Jim’s journey of discovery moved on to another aspect of henges that had long interested us. He said:
Taking flying lessons years ago, I remember the subject of ‘lookout for traffic’ on collision course was important. I remember being told that if approaching traffic appears to stay in the same spot in the windscreen, then that traffic will come through the windscreen at that spot! If it apparently moves away from that spot then you are not on collision course.
Could the same be said for an approaching comet? Would it be the case that an object passing across the sky is definitely not on collision course, but one getting bigger and staying in the same spot, relative to other stars, is on collision course? If so, it would be a very simple test requiring only an artificial horizon to mark the spot and a pendulum to measure the time from the rising of a known fixed star.
This is a key point from a geologically orientated engineer. As already mentioned, in 1997 Chris had been led to investigate a cometary impact that may have caused a global flood, by evidence supplied to him by leading Cambridge geologist Jack Miller. This had resulted in the publication of Uriel’s Machine in 1999, which argued that a massive tsunami caused by a seven-part comet impact had indeed devastated the planet around 9,000 years ago.4 Memory of this event is recorded in virtually every culture of the world and an increasing number of geologists are now of a similar opinion.
In his book, Chris recreated a machine described in the Book of Enoch, arguably the oldest written story in the world. A figure described as an ‘angel’ (not necessarily an otherworldly description at that time) and by the name of Uriel – meaning ‘flame of God’ in early Hebrew – dictates instructions to Enoch for the building of a machine. When reconstructed this machine turns out to be a circle of wooden posts carefully aligned using the sine wave of a pendulum to mark the horizon movements of the Sun. One of the principal benefits of this device is its ability to indicate whether or not a distant comet is on a trajectory that will lead to an impact with the Earth. If it sustains such a trajectory, the user knows to set off to the Alps, the Rocky Mountains, or any other substantially high ground if they do not want to be wiped off the face of the planet by a giant tsunami.
Jim Russell had again intuitively identified a genuine usage for ancient astronomy. Chris sent him a copy of Uriel’s Machine and, after carefully reading it, Jim said that Chris’ deciphering of the Book of Enoch was a logical interpretation of what had been to him a total mystery.
Jim Russell is a busy man, but he has created a considerable amount of time to conduct a range of practical experiments to establish just how much could be achieved with Neolithic technology if one had some basic astronomical awareness. Appendix 6 was written by Jim as an account of his approach and the results of his astonishing experiments.
Jim has suggested two methods to estimate the Earth’s circumference – a horizontal method and a vertical method. He points out that the horizontal method should be much more accurate than the vertical method as the sighting distances can be further apart. But, the horizontal method can only be carried out with clear skies at dawn at equinox, whereas the vertical method can be done on any suitable day in the year. Both methods work with either the stars or the Sun to calculate the Earth’s circumference at the observation latitude.
The apparatus Jim has constructed, as proof of concept, is very large but still relatively small scale compared to that which would have existed in Neolithic times. The apparatus 5,500 years ago could have been many times larger and hence more accurate.
On 21 March 2009, as proof of concept, Jim took the ‘away’ vertical sight rail 30 miles from home on a lorry, set up in 30 minutes, took the readings in 3 minutes and brought the sight rail back to the yard the same evening. The result of this short experiment was a value for Earth circumference of 25,802 miles. Jim realized that the error of about 3 per cent in this result was due to the effect of the wind on the unprotected plumb line on the wooden pole. Perfect weather (good visibility and no wind whatsoever) is critical to the experiments. With minor equipment modifications, Jim is confident that larger vertical equipment or the horizontal method would better the ±50 miles accuracy. In the conclusion of his report Jim observes that, considering that six months ago no one had even proposed a Neolithic method of determining Earth circumference, his experiment must be considered a remarkable success.
Jim considers he has demonstrated that Neolithic astronomers could have experimentally determined the diameter of the Earth, and could have produced more accurate results than he has, using full-scale equipment.
Some may say that, just because Neolithic peoples could have done this does not mean that they did. Some would deny the relevance of the experiments because there are no remains of any such equipment. But whilst wood rots, the outcomes of these measurements do not. As Jim Russell has said: ‘The only evidence of the use of either method would be the results.’ And the results are there in abundance for those willing to open their eyes.