The Old Straight Track: Its Mounds, Beacons, Moats, Sites and Mark Stones is a book by Alfred Watkins, first published in 1925, describing the existence of alleged ley lines in Great Britain. [1]
Watkins presents a methodical and thorough exposition of his theories of ley lines, following an earlier much shorter publication, "Early British Trackways" (1922). The book has a preface, thirty chapters, four appendices and an index. There are many figures, and photographs taken by the author.
The book is considered the first book written about leys, and the first book to document and map alleged ley lines in Britain, primarily southern England. According to a review in The Geographical Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, Watkins sought to prove that "mounds, moats, beacons and markstones fall into strait tracks, i.e. sighted lines, throughout Britain, with fragmentary evidence of trackways on the alignments." [2]
The book was disregarded by archaeologists but saw a resurgence of interest with the rise of New Age ideas in the 1960s. [3] Watkins' ideas also influenced contemporary psychogeography, including Iain Sinclair's Lud Heat (1975), which in turn influenced Peter Ackroyd's novel Hawksmoor (1985). [4]
Watkins' work met with early scepticism from archaeologists, one of whom, O. G. S. Crawford, refused to accept advertisements for The Old Straight Track in the journal Antiquity. [5]
One criticism of Watkins' ley line theory states that given the high density of historic and prehistoric sites in Britain and other parts of Europe, finding straight lines that "connect" sites is trivial and ascribable to coincidence. A statistical analysis of lines concluded: "the density of archaeological sites in the British landscape is so great that a line drawn through virtually anywhere will 'clip' a number of sites." [6]
The book was reprinted as ISBN 0-349-13707-2 on April 2, 1994 by "Abacus". Editions or reprints were published in 1925, 1933, 1945, 1948, 1970, 1974 and 1994. The Abacus edition of 1970 was reprinted up to 1999 at least, and carries a copyright dated 1970 "Allen Watkins and Marion Watkins".
Ley lines are straight alignments drawn between various historic structures, prehistoric sites and prominent landmarks. The idea was developed in early 20th-century Europe, with ley line believers arguing that these alignments were recognised by ancient societies that deliberately erected structures along them. Since the 1960s, members of the Earth Mysteries movement and other esoteric traditions have commonly believed that such ley lines demarcate "earth energies" and serve as guides for alien spacecraft. Archaeologists and scientists regard ley lines as an example of pseudoarchaeology and pseudoscience.
Tiwanaku is a Pre-Columbian archaeological site in western Bolivia, near Lake Titicaca, about 70 kilometers from La Paz, and it is one of the largest sites in South America. Surface remains currently cover around 4 square kilometers and include decorated ceramics, monumental structures, and megalithic blocks. The site's population probably peaked around AD 800 with 10,000 to 20,000 people.
Psychogeography is the exploration of urban environments that emphasizes interpersonal connections to places and arbitrary routes. It was developed by members of the Letterist International and Situationist International, which were revolutionary groups influenced by Marxist and anarchist theory as well as the attitudes and methods of Dadaists and Surrealists. In 1955, Guy Debord defined psychogeography as "the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals." One of the key tactics for exploring psychogeography is the loosely defined urban walking practice known as the dérive. As a practice and theory, psychogeography has influenced a broad set of cultural actors, including artists, activists and academics.
Alignments of random points in a plane refers to the study of the relative positions of point that are randomly placed in a planar region. For example, how closely can we expect to find three points lying on a straight line? Studies have shown that such near-alignments occur by chance with greater frequency than one might intuitively expect. This has been put forward as a demonstration that ley lines and other similar mysterious alignments believed by some to be phenomena of deep significance might exist solely due to chance alone, as opposed to the supernatural or anthropological explanations put forward by their proponents. The topic has also been studied in the fields of computer vision and astronomy.
Gerald Stanley Hawkins was a British-born American astronomer and author noted for his work in the field of archaeoastronomy. A professor and chair of the astronomy department at Boston University in the United States, he published in 1963 an analysis of Stonehenge in which he was the first to propose that it was an ancient astronomical observatory used to predict movements of the sun and moon, and that it was used as a computer. Archaeologists and other scholars have since demonstrated such sophisticated, complex planning and construction at other prehistoric earthwork sites, such as Cahokia in the United States.
The Great Serpent Mound is a 1,348-foot-long (411 m), three-foot-high prehistoric effigy mound located in Peebles, Ohio. It was built on what is known as the Serpent Mound crater plateau, running along the Ohio Brush Creek in Adams County, Ohio. The mound is the largest serpent effigy in the world.
Llancillo Church is a Grade II*-listed redundant church in Herefordshire, England, near the Welsh border at grid reference SO36622557.
Earth mysteries are a wide range of spiritual, quasi-religious ideas focusing on cultural and religious beliefs about the Earth, generally with a regard for specific geographic locations of historic importance. Similar to modern druidry, prehistoric monuments are of particular spiritual importance to believers in Earth mysteries who consider certain locations to be sacred and/or containing active spiritual energies. The characterization of the term "alternative archaeology" has also been used to describe the study of Earth mystery beliefs.
Oneota is a designation archaeologists use to refer to a cultural complex that existed in the eastern plains and Great Lakes area of what is now occupied by the United States from around AD 900 to around 1650 or 1700. Based on classification defined in Gordon Willey and Philip Phillips' 1958 book Method and Theory in American Archaeology, the Oneota culture belongs to formative stage. The culture is believed to have transitioned into various Siouan cultures of the protohistoric and historic times, such as the Ioway. A long-accepted ancestry to the Ho-chunk has yet to be conclusively demonstrated.
Below are notable events in archaeology that occurred in 1922.
Historic roads are paths or routes that have historical importance due to their use over a period of time. Examples exist from prehistoric times until the early 20th century. They include ancient trackways, long-lasting roads, important trade routes, and migration trails. Many historic routes, such as the Silk Road, the Amber Road, and the Royal Road of the Persian Empire, covered great distances and their impact on human settlements remain today.
Xavier Guichard (1870–1947) was a French Director of Police, archaeologist and writer.
John Frederick Carden Michell was an English author and esotericist who was a prominent figure in the development of the pseudoscientific Earth mysteries movement. Over the course of his life he published over forty books on an array of different subjects, being a proponent of the Traditionalist school of esoteric thought.
An alignment in archaeology is a co-linear arrangement of features or structures with external landmarks, in archaeoastronomy the term may refer to an alignment with an astronomically significant point or axis.
Stonehenge has been the subject of many theories about its origin, ranging from the academic worlds of archaeology to explanations from mythology and the paranormal.
The Bat Creek inscription is an inscribed stone tablet found by John W. Emmert on February 14, 1889. Emmert claimed to have found the tablet in Tipton Mound 3 during an excavation of Hopewell mounds in Loudon County, Tennessee. This excavation was part of a larger series of excavations that aimed to clarify the controversy regarding who is responsible for building the various mounds found in the Eastern United States.
Paul Devereux is a British author, researcher, lecturer, broadcaster, artist and photographer based in the UK. Devereux is a co-founder and the managing editor of the academic publication Time & Mind – the Journal of Archaeology, Consciousness and Culture, a research associate with the Royal College of Art (2007–2013), and a Research Fellow with the International Consciousness Research Laboratories (ICRL) group at Princeton University.
Alfred Watkins was an English businessman and amateur archaeologist who developed the idea of ley lines.
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North Hill is the second highest point of the range of Malvern Hills that runs about 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) north-south along the Herefordshire-Worcestershire border, although North Hill lies entirely within Worcestershire. It has an elevation of 397 metres (1,302 ft), making it the highest point of the Worcestershire Way.