(Keywords: Sightseeing - United Kingdom)

Archaeogeodesy

Ancient Monuments:
Earthen Circles and Stone Henges

Did ancient astronomers survey the Earth? James Q. Jacobs is studying the spatial relationships of prehistoric monuments located around the world, a field of study he named archaeogeodesy.

Download this special edition GPS map of earthworks and megaliths to see if you can find any geographic or astronomic patterns.

Due to its spatial nature, you do not need to overlay this data on terrain maps to see simple relationships. For example, simply plotting of geographic coordinates shows the linear relationship between the three Thornborough sites (Waypoints THOR, THH2, & THH3) (Google Earth screenshot shown above).

At the time of this writing, there were very few of these sites which Google Earth covered with high resolution imagery. However, click on the binoculars to see an exceptional Google Earth of the Ferrybridge Henge (Waypoint FERR).

GPS Maps

Download the free GPS Map in GPS eXchange (.gpx) file format, which can be read and transferred to your GPS with free GPS software . (The .gpx file will appear in a new window where you can File > Save as... on your computer)

or, if you prefer

Download the free GPS Map in (.kmz) file format.

GPS Map Details

File Names: monuments2.gpx (179KB), monuments.kmz (3KB)
Revised: 1 March 2006
Class B Data

Notes: The GPX file contains the most data (398 waypoints). The KMZ file was pared down to focus on Great Britain. Most descriptive text was stripped from the KMZ file during conversion from GPX, but some descriptions were added back to particular points of interest. Also in the KMZ file, some locations were tweaked to better match the imagery and the view angle of selected placemarks was adjusted to enahnce interest.

References

Special thanks to James Jacobs who provided the data for this GPS map of prehistoric monuments, and who introduced me to the term "archaeogeodesy." Please visit his web site for more information about the study of prehistoric and ancient place determination, point positioning, astronomy, geodynamic phenomena, measure and representation of the earth, navigation... and some really cool photos.