Civilization One: The World is Not as You Thought it Was (7 page)

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.

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 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.

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.

As he performed the simple sum on his calculator Chris thought he recognized the number produced and he quickly converted 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.