It follows that measuring something as simple as this could be as old as language itself. Indeed, the words ‘eeny, meeny, miney, mow’ are thought to be an ancient British counting technique from more than 4,000 years ago.
Beyond reasonable doubt
There is no doubt that the Megalithic Yard is a superb integer of the polar circumference of the Earth – right down to a second of arc that is an incredible 366 Megalithic Yards in length. Once this unit had been defined by obviously gifted astronomers, these early scientists appear to have created a foolproof method that every master mason could use to generate an accurate Megalithic Yardstick.
This whole process is brilliantly simple, memorable and unerringly accurate. Of course there will have been errors of judgement when transferring the length from the pendulum to a measuring stick but that is the kind of distribution of error that Alexander Thom found. Because there was a physical reality behind the process, all errors deviated from a central point of 82.96656 centimetres. Pure Neolithic genius!
After several years of intense investigation we had come to a point where there were only three basic possibilities for Alexander Thom’s Megalithic Yard:
1. The unit that Thom thought he had detected at hundreds of Megalithic sites was an error of statistical manipulation. The fact that the unit he defined, to within a 10,000th of a millimetre, just happened to so precisely fit the Earth’s circumference and was reproducible using the astronomically key number of 366 were both coincidences. It followed that the hypothetical 366-degree geometry system outlined was not real and the precise fit of 366 Megalithic Yards and 1,000 Minoan feet to an assumed second of arc was a further coincidence.
2. Thom’s Megalithic Yard was real in some still unknown way and our interpretation only fitted the facts by sheer coincidence.
3. We had rediscovered the wonderful system that was used to define and recreate the Megalithic Yard.
It is up to each reader to come to their own conclusion as to which option is most likely to be correct. At this stage we were fully convinced that the first two options were not correct because of the number of outrageous coincidences required to sustain either view. However, little did we know that we had barely scratched the surface of a system that makes all modern approaches to measurement look simply crude. We had just begun on a journey that was to tap into the very fabric of the universe.
In solving the riddle of the Megalithic Yard we believe we have made it easy for archaeologists to at last accept Thom’s findings without any fundamental contradiction of their existing views on the abilities of the builders of the Megalithic structures of western Europe. But now it looked as though there was a far deeper understanding of astronomy behind the creation of the Megalithic Yard than anyone could have imagined and the world of academic archaeology is likely to resist the idea that the Neolithic astronomers could have achieved so much. We share their surprise, but the balance of probabilities makes the continued rejection of Thom’s conclusion unscientific and merely the result of personal prejudice.
One leading academic was brave enough to be generous about our early attempt to solve the mystery of the Megalithic Yard. In September 2000 Chris and Robert Lomas attended the Orkney Science Festival where they shared our first, albeit slightly flawed explanation of the Megalithic Yard with Archie Roy, Emeritus Professor of Astronomy at Glasgow University. Professor Roy is not only a distinguished astronomer but he had also worked with Professor Thom in identifying the archaeoastronomy present in Megalithic sites. He spent the evening checking the mathematics involved in our original model, based upon the movement of stars, and the next morning he announced that the method did work in principle. He then joined Chris and Robert in a public demonstration of how the Megalithic Yard might have been created. Professor Roy added that he believed we had opened up a new chapter in the understanding of Megalithic Man.
Alexander Thom had never attempted to justify his findings in cultural terms. He did not believe it was for him to explain how or why the Neolithic inhabitants of western Europe developed the Megalithic Yard – like the true engineer he was he simply reported what the data showed. Those who wanted to construct a smooth model of prehistory were not happy because of the consequences of accepting that the Stone Age builders were actually very sophisticated. It was simply too inconvenient to even consider a re-evaluation of the standard credo concerning human development.
The result is that few people of reputable scientific standing have looked afresh at the late Stone Age and early Bronze Age cultures in and around the British Isles. The archaeologists gaze at their recovered physical artefacts and they see a consistent picture – but maybe it is only consistent because they ignore evidence that does not suit their model. Now we have established that the Megalithic builders were, beyond all reasonable doubt, using a highly sophisticated system of measurement despite the fact that every other piece of evidence suggests that they were not generally very advanced.
There seemed to be two possible scenarios: either these Neolithic people were very accomplished surveyors and astronomers or they had accidentally stumbled upon some important natural phenomenon when they based their common unit of linear length on the dimensions of the Earth. Perhaps they did not understand what was happening – but then how could the Minoans have employed the same principle in a different application if the whole thing was an accident?
This is real!
A very strange picture was beginning to emerge and it seemed sensible to search for any other evidence that might be available. If the Megalithic people were smart enough to develop a complex system of geometry, we had to assume that they could have done more. Having created their unit of length from a unit of time, the next obvious steps would have been to create units of weight and capacity. Such a move would have been an important building block towards trade, which was in turn a key step towards true civilization.
It seemed to us that if an integrated system of weights had once existed around the ‘366’ concept, the best route forward would be to continue to use Thom’s principle of asking the question, ‘What would I have done to achieve the assumed goal?’ Taking this simple philosophy Chris began a series of experiments that gave results that were to be as shocking as they were totally perplexing.
CONCLUSIONS
We have been able to demonstrate that the Megalithic Yard was real, being derived directly from the polar circumference of the Earth using a system of geometry that was based on the number of revolutions of the planet in a year.
When we compared Professor Thom’s findings with those of Professor Graham relating to the Minoan foot, we found that both appear to be based on this highly sophisticated system of Earth geometry that assumed a circle of 366 degrees. The precision of the geometric correlation between these apparently unrelated ancient units causes us to take as proven the pre-existence of the system where a second of arc of the polar equator is respectively equal to 366 Megalithic Yards and 1,000 Minoan feet.
We also identified a simple method whereby anyone given simple instructions could repeatedly and accurately create the Megalithic Yard using only basic tools and straightforward observational astronomy.
1 Butler, A.: The Bronze Age Computer Disc. Quantum, London, 1999.
2 See: www.earth-sci.com/Earthnmaps.html.
See also: www.hightechscience.org; www.earth.rochester.edu
3 Graham, J. W.: The Palaces of Crete. Princeton University Press, London, 1962.
4 Castleden, R.: The Making of Stonehenge. Routledge, London, 1994.
5 Thom and Thom: Megalithic Remains in Britain and Brittany. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1978. Chapters 3, 4, 6, 7 & 8.
6 Knight, C. and Lomas, R.: The Book of Hiram. Arrow, London, 2004.
7 Knight, C. and Lomas, R.: Uriel’s Machine. Arrow, London, 2000.
CHAPTER 3
The Harmony of the Spheres
Megalithic society
We have to concede that the society that existed at the building of
the Megalithic structures in the British Isles does seem too primitive to have developed a precise system of measurement. The lives of these people must have been difficult, involving a permanent struggle to produce food and keep warm. So little is known about the inhabitants of these islands in these truly ancient times that they are remembered by the style of the pottery they left behind. Some earlier groups are now known as the Grooved Ware people and Unstan Ware people, with later representatives of the Megalithic culture designated the Beaker Folk. All these terms refer to specific designs or shapes of vessels created by the cultures or subcultures in question and archaeological finds are often dated with reference to pottery shards.
The main upsurge in building began around the middle of the fourth millennium BC when the climate of the British Isles was warmer and wetter than it is today and with a slightly longer growing season. It is known that inhabitants of the region cultivated wheat and barley because impressions of these cereals have been found on pottery fragments. Such printings are evident in examples from across much of Europe and Asia and the cereal grains may be been deliberately used to add patterns to prehistoric pottery. We were to discover that grain seeds, and those of barley especially, had a practical as well as a ritual significance to our ancient ancestors.
These early farmers ploughed the ground with animal bones and planted seeds using a simple kind of mattock or hoe before harvesting their crops with flint sickles and using flat querns (grinding stones) to grind the grain. Experts believe that it must have been a very wasteful process by any later standards. The Grooved Ware people knew nothing of crop rotation and when the ground was exhausted, the farmers moved on, clearing the next patch of woodland with stone axes and burning off the remaining scrub.
Hunted species included deer and wild cattle and available marine resources comprised freshwater and sea fish, especially shellfish including oysters, winkles, cockles, crabs, and razor-shells. Besides planted crops, wild plant resources, including fruits, roots, hazelnuts and acorns were gathered, and rope was manufactured from fibrous plants such as heather, which was twisted. Husbanded livestock included sheep, cows, goats, pigs and dogs, which are believed to have been introduced from mainland Europe between 4200–3500 BC. The evidence from all the settlement sites suggests that sheep or goats and cattle were kept in approximately equal proportions but pigs were relatively rare.
Movement across the countryside for these first British farmers was difficult due to thick forest cover and marshes and, significantly, because the wheel was unknown in western Europe at this time. Heavy loads were moved using land sledges and rafts. Water must have provided the best means of transport and experts have suggested that small animal-skin boats rather like the Inuit whaling umiak or the Irish curragh were used.
Stone tools made from flint, chert beach pebbles and rum bloodstone were used and polished stone axe heads were manufactured in Ireland from around 4000 BC, before spreading to the rest of the British Isles. The dwellings excavated from the period are rectilinear timber structures with stone bases and turf roofs, typically about 6 x 6 metres, although they were sometimes much larger.
The astronomer-priests
The lives these people led were basic but it is almost certain that amongst them existed a class that was different from the norm. Its existence was made possible because of surplus food production and specialization of crafts and trades. These people, thinkers and proto-engineers, doubtless supervised the building of the impressive Megalithic structures that Alexander Thom could understand thousands of years later. As hunter-gatherers, the whole community would have been involved in the daily struggle to find food and make new homes as they moved from place to place. With the advent of farming, the culture could afford to create the considerable support structure needed to cut deep henges (circular ditches), sometimes out of solid rock and to construct giant structures like Newgrange in Ireland. By this stage, many people must have been permanently involved with building and these individuals had to be fed, clothed and housed by the efforts of others. The nature of the finished sites clearly demonstrates that an elite had emerged which represented the architects, the scientists, the thinkers and, no doubt, the poets. These were the ‘magi’ – the astronomer-priests who had responsibility for designing and building the Megalithic sites that Professor Thom studied so closely.
It also appears that there might have been a national network of Megalithic observatories with different ones being used for varying astronomical purposes dependent on the location of each. Had these structures been made to satisfy purely local or religious needs, one would expect to see less commonality in the style and layout than is evident across a very extensive area.
One archaeological site found at Skara Brae in Orkney is particularly interesting because it may well have been a Megalithic ‘university’ for training astronomer-priests. Radiocarbon dating has shown that it was occupied between approximately 3215–2655 BC when it provided a series of linked rooms, each with matching stone-built furniture including dressers, beds, cooking areas and sealed stone water tubs for washing. Archaeologists have identified that secrecy, security and plumbing are also apparent at the site. A secret hidey-hole has been found under the stone dresser and a hole for a locking bar was located on both sides of doors. In addition, a lavatory drain designed to run excrement along wooden piping and into the sea has also been excavated. Curiously, the house designated by archaeologists as ‘number seven’ was isolated and its door was barred from the outside suggesting that it was designed to house an occupant being kept against their will.
The archaeologist Euan Mackie first put forward the idea that Skara Brae had been a kind of prehistoric college when he noticed that the remains of the sheep and cows eaten there had far too few skulls for the number of carcasses. He concluded that pre-butchered meat had been imported to the island, along with the firewood required to cook it.1 Because the island had nothing to trade, the only reasonable answer to this archaeological puzzle is that the inhabitants had been an elite group who where supported by the goodwill of a broader community at a distance.
Skara Brae also revealed some artefacts that have proved impossible to understand. Small stone objects that have been exquisitely carved include two balls: one 6.2 centimetres and the other 7.7 centimetres in diameter. Their purpose is unknown and the deep decoration appears to be impossible to create without metal tools as engineer James Macauley discovered when he attempted to reproduce them using the known technology of the time.
Weights and measures
If we had begun our quest by creating intellectual boundaries relating to what was and was not feasible for this culture to achieve, we would never have found the solution to the Megalithic Yard. However, we had been very impressed with the unit, the method for proving it and also its wide distribution, which indicated common values and perhaps religious beliefs. With this in mind Chris took another speculative step forward and began to construct a theoretical weight and capacity system to accompany that of time, distance and geometry that we had already established. He started at the point in history at which many more modern cultures appear to have started when creating such units; by making a cube and filling it with water. Chris knew that those creating the metric system had opted for a length of one tenth of a metre, which they cubed. The volume of water in such a 10 x 10 x 10 centimetre cube was designated a litre, and the weight of such a body of water was named a kilogram.
In our case, the linear units would have to be in Megalithic Inches, which Thom identified as being one fortieth of a Megalithic Yard, equal to 2.07415 centimetres. Taking his lead from the metric system Chris first considered a cube with sides of a tenth of a Megalithic Yard – i.e. four Megalithic Inches (MI). In metric terms this turned out to have a capacity of a little over half a litre, at 571.08 cubic centimetres.
The ‘imperial system’
As he performed the simple sum on his calculator Chris thought he recognized the number produced and he quickly converte
d it into imperial units (the standard measuring system still used in Britain). His brow furrowed and he repeated the calculation twice more to confirm his result. Something very odd was happening because the theoretical Megalithic unit of capacity was equal to 1.005 pints – far closer to one perfect British pint than any pub landlord achieves when pulling a glass of draught ale! Of course, this had to be a coincidence, but it was a really surprising one nonetheless. Next, he doubled the length of the side of the cube to 8 MI and the shock of the first coincidence was compounded because this calculation produced a capacity of one imperial gallon to the same incredible level of accuracy. A doubling again produced a unit equivalent to an obsolete bushel, which was used as a dry weight until as recently as the 1970s.
As Chris stopped to think about the calculations he realized that the gallon would have to fit the same way as the pint because there are eight pints to a gallon and a doubling of the side of a cube will create a capacity eight times larger. But this fact did not detract from the oddity because the imperial system is not known to be based on cubes. These results were odd in the extreme and all logic said that they had to be a coincidence. We had already learned not to dismiss any information simply because it does not fit our own preconceptions. So, instead of tossing the calculation in his office bin Chris picked up the phone and told Alan about the strange correspondence.
‘What?’Alan responded. ‘That’s crazy!’
‘I’m not saying there is a connection – it has to be a coincidence because the pint and the gallon as we know them today are medieval units at best, and they have probably been restandardized several times,’ Chris explained.
Civilization One: The World is Not as You Thought it Was Page 5