An Appreciation of Hamish Miller The recent and peaceful death of Hamish Miller at his home near St Ives, Cornwall, has prompted an enormous and appreciative response. The Parallel Community, which Hamish recently helped to found, enjoyed over 47,000 messages on its website, a warranted response to a man who had given so much to both the alternative and earth mysteries movement. Hamish was well loved...more>> Maen Colan Samson The Site is located in the field directly below Pentre Ifan, and to the North-East. In the two centuries of the great antiquarian visits to the most famous dolmen in Wales, it was known as Samson’s Quoit, and the fields surrounding the monument were known as Samson’s Fold (Corlan Samson in Welsh)...more>> Protecting the Skyline Since horizon astronomy is the basis of prehistoric siting of ancient monuments, the remaining undisturbed skylines, still not built upon or altered, need to be preserved. This is a particular problem in mid-Wales where the landscape is neither a National Park nor an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and is being covered by wind turbine installations...more>> Geometry and Time in Prehistory Good afternoon. There have been three gurus in my life, and John was one of these. The others were Alexander Thom, the father of archaeoastronomy, and John Seymour, the self-sufficiency guru who pioneered the back-to-the-land movement and organic farming. All three were pioneers and all three were, as John described himself, radical traditionalists. Both John and Alex Thom said that ‘only five people in the world understood ‘ their findings...more>> Archaeoastronomy and Bayes Theory In recent years it has become fashionable in academic circles to apply statistical and mathematical probability theories such as Bayes Theorem to the evidence for astronomical alignments at prehistoric sites. The most influential book on this subject was Bayesian Approach to Interpreting Archaeological Data (1996) by C.E.Buck, W.G.Cavanagh and C.D.Litton. This idea was in turn taken up by Clive Ruggles in various articles and especially in his Astronomy in Prehistoric Britain and Ireland (1999)...more>> Theodolites A theodolite enables angles to be accurately measured in both the horizontal and vertical planes. How accurately this can be will depend partly on the quality of the instrument, and partly to the competence and experience of the theodolitist. For most archaeological work a good surveying theodolite is normally used, and this should be capable of resolution accuracy of one minute of degree...more>> Using a Compass The most commonly met error in landscape work is an assumption that the blue grid squares on an OS map align to the cardinal points of the compass. They do not. Drawing up North-South or East-West lines on Ordnance Survey maps requires that you refer to the longitude printed around the top and bottom edges of the map, (for East-West lines the latitude on the right and left edges) from which North-South and East-West lines may then accurately be drawn onto the map...more>> Secret Land Book My role in this book began quite simply. I began using surveying techniques to quantify Paul’s researches and this type of evidence became astonishingly revealing. Techniques I had previously employed to investigate Neolithic and Bronze Age sites proved immediately adaptable to suit Paul’s project here and in The Secret Land I give an analysis of the sites, the evidence from surveys, and the implications that follow...more>> Sky and Landscape by Irene Eais About twenty years ago my husband and I bought a remote cottage in the hills in mid-Wales and used it for family holidays as our children were growing up. Nearby were some huge piles of stones marked as cairns on the OS map and I boldly told my children that when we got home I would get a book from the public library and find out all about them. Thus began a long process of reading books on prehistoric Britain and archaeology and realising that in fact no one really knows how these monuments were used and why they were placed where they are...more>> An Appreciation of John Michell (1933 –2009) With the passing of John Michell, the planet has lost a truly original thinker and the earth mysteries movement loses its father figure. Although Alfred Watkins was the original investigator into this long forgotten aspect of the ancient world, it was John who did more than anyone to dust the subject off...more>> Archaeologists in Stonehenge Bluestone Shock It appears you can get away with almost anything in contemporary archaeology. One can for once agree with Jacquetta Hawkes who reckoned that ‘Every generation gets the Stonehenge it deserves’. In this generation one may gain permission to dig the hallowed turf of Stonehenge itself provided you have a theory that is zeitgeisty enough to woo the public. But does it hold water?...more>> Research at Le Manio, France. June 2009 The Baie du Morbihan area of southern Brittany is the most densely populated area of megalithic activity in Europe. Despite centuries of mass destruction of thousands of standing stones, dolmens and cromlechs (stone rings in France), for quality building stone, enough surviving stones remain to provide mute evidence of a profoundly important cultural movement active in this area since at least 6000 BC. The Grand Menhir Brise in Locqmariaquer was once the highest standing stone in the world, its fallen remains weighing in at an estimated 340 tons...more>> The Lundy Egg - Largest in Britain! What a place is Lundy! Everybody needs to go there at least once in their lifetime. It has held its secrets well. I was there this time to do further research into a secret from the Stone Age, described in my earlier books and,most recently, in The Measure of Albion, co-authored with John Michell. Lundy holds a secret about our national temple, Stonehenge...more>> Cracking the Stone Age Code by Robin Heath Professor Alexander Thom was one of the foremost scientists and engineers of the last century. Once Chair of Engineering Science at Brasenose College, Oxford, following an already distinguished career in both the academic and industrial world, during the War he had been Principal Scientific Officer for the design of the High Speed Wind Tunnel at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough, and had assisted Sir Barnes Wallace in the design of the famous ‘bouncing bomb’ of Dambuster’s fame...more>> Research at Avebury, England July 2009 The obvious first question to ask about Avebury ring is why go to all this trouble, when a circle would apparently have done the job of impressing everyone just as well? Thom’s survey established that the geometry and units of length were extremely well thought out and accurately executed on the ground. My own work has revealed another interesting fact that is revealed here for the first time...more>>