Stone Age Britons Travelled Using GPS Coordinates as Early as 5,000 Years Ago
It was impossible to get lost in Britain during the Stone Age, or at least it wasn't when you were making use of GPS coordinates and Britain's first ancient - crude version of a - satellite navigation system system. That is, according to Tom Brooks who says that the Stone Age's satnav was based on the stone circle and other megalithic markers that can be found all over southern England and Wales. Historian and writer Tom Brooks, says this shows that Britain’s Stone Age ancestors were 'sophisticated engineers' and far from a barbaric race.
Brooks says he studied all known prehistoric sites in Britain - including standing stones, hilltop forts, stone circles and hill camps which makes the number total over a 1,000 as Standing with Stones will tell you - as part of his research and found that the prehistoric man was able to travel between settlements in England with pinpoint accuracy, thanks to a complex network of hilltop monuments, as each was built within eyeshot of the next.
These covered much of southern England and Wales and included now famous landmarks such as Stonehenge and The Mount. Brooks' research suggests that these prehistoric markings in the landscape were built on a geometric grid of isosceles triangles that ‘point’ to the next site. Each triangle has two sides of the same length and ‘point’ to the next settlement. This should have provided a simple way for ancient Britons to navigate successfully from point A to B without the need for maps: anyone standing on the site of Stonehenge in Wiltshire could have navigated their way to Lanyon Quoit in Cornwall without a map.
"To create these triangles with such accuracy would have required a complex understanding of geometry. The sides of some of the triangles are over 100 miles across on each side and yet the distances are accurate to within 100 metres. You cannot do that by chance," said Brooks. He suggests the triangle navigation system may have been used for trading routes among the expanding population as well as by workers to create social paths back to their families while they were working on these new prehistoric monuments.
What do the Stonehenge experts think? Mike Pitts, editor of British Archaeology, told the Daily Mail: "The landscape of southern Britain was intensively settled and there are many earth works and archaeological finds. It is very easy to find patterns in the landscape, but it doesn't mean that they are real."
You could counter this by stating not everything needs to be 'bonne chance' and that Tom Brook's 'Stone Age Satnav Theory' is possible, but then where does the 'satellite' part come from? Well, Brooks does not rule out extraterrestrial help.
"So advanced, sophisticated and accurate is the geometrical surveying now discovered, that we must review fundamentally the perception of our Stone Age forebears as primitive, or conclude that they received some form of external guidance," says Brooks.
Yeah sure, and giant monkeys build the pyramids! I must note though, that if one ever shows me a 'real' alien, stating it's race has helped building Stonehenge and made that ancient Britons beat the Americans to the invention of GPS, I'll offer Mr. Brooks' my most sincere apologies. In the mean while, for other - deliberately - insane Stonehenge theories, have a look at this collection. If you choose to double-check Tom Brooks theory, try this impressive 3D animation of the Stonehenge landscape by Wessex Archaeology, or make your own calculations on Woodhenge and Avesbury using Google Earth.
Read 9 comments, or leave your own
videos
Comments
Is that a Fibonacci spiral is right smack dab in the middle of the picture posted on the Daily Mail sci page. Fibonacci squares and cavemen do not mix! These little nipper, early humans must have been quite clever, indeed. Or perhaps it comes naturally? Golden mean, natural geometry, and all that.
That does eerily look like a Fibonacci Spiral, actually.. Hmmm, well they do say that the mind is naturally settled with structures conforming to the Golden Section. Perhaps this is one of the oldest examples of the Golden Ratio - predating even Euclid's Elements and the statues of the Parthenon!
I'm not so sure what that spiral is doing there, either, but agree with Mike Pitts here: if you have more than a 1,000 points in an area as - relatively - small as Britain, you can be sure you can find some pattern in them! I'm sure if you just choose the right dots - remember those childhood 'connect the dots' drawings? - you can see UFO's, dragons or even the Queen in them! ;)
So does this mean that the rest of the world were wandering around totally lost? Has Brooks tried to navigate in dense summer woodland over hundreds of miles using only hilltop markers. How insulting to prehistoric Brits to say they needed such markers. Must remember to ask the next mongolian I meet if they have hilltop markers too to be able to get about.
Yet another crackpot idea to sell a few books.
Good thought. I think even that early a minority of people must have already grasped they can navigate on the positions of the stars, in combination with the amount it takes to travel a certain distance, ... . But I do admit, last time I tried to get from Stonehenge to London, I almost got lost. Maybe because most of the markers are gone now? ;)
looks like the Crop Circles
I think before this should be dismissed as "crackpot" maybe we should examine the evidence first. This is not just joining dots, it is a consistent series of a unique triangle linking over 1000 sites, if the author is to be believed.
It's just the mentioning of aliens, I'm sorry, it automatically triggers my 'tin foil hat' functionality! ;)
Post new comment