Prehistoric Geometry
The star quality of our Stone Age ancestors
It’s clear our prehistoric ancestors had “star quality”, says Tom Brooks, who has found a two vast star patterns in the landscape, one formed by the geometric relation between prehistoric monuments, and the other between medieval churches.
He said: “This ancient form of geometry permits the production of various patterns across our landscape linking these prehistoric settlements and waymarks. The first [shown above] radiates from Silbury Hill, which is Europe's largest earthen monument and the nucleus of a navigation system that spreads across Britain and probably beyond, but there are many similar that reach, as does this one, from Derbyshire to Cambridgeshire, Sussex, Hampshire, Somerset and Wales, using only isosceles triangles accurate to within 100 metres over distances up to 250 miles.”
Geometric properties such as Pythagorean and isosceles triangulation are fundamental to this newly uncovered patterning, says Tom who, amazingly, has found that the star treatment applies equally to churches and other Christian houses such as abbeys, priories and cathedrals across a large area of south-west England, including Wells Cathedral in Somerset.
He added: “Such is the mathematical precision that it is inconceivable that this work could have been carried out by the primitive indigenous culture we have always associated with such structures. Such patterns can be traced to this day and could only have been the work of highly intelligent surveyors and planners which puts Britain in a unique position and throws into question all previous claims as to the origin of mathematics. All this suggests a culture existing in these islands in the past quite outside our expectation and experience today.”
It's further proof that there were maths wizards among the ancient Brits 5,000-6,000 years ago, at least two millennia before the Greeks who are supposed to have discovered the geometry.
Tom said: “It is known that many, if not all, early churches, abbeys and cathedrals were constructed on ancient sites that had become meeting places through the passage of time, and the diagram [below] has been produced to illustrate that point. It links 13 churches within four counties of south-west England in stellar formation. It ranges across 60 miles and is a remarkably accurate arrangement of isosceles triangles projecting to varying compass points from a single base isosceles triangle in Dorset.”
Always considered by archaeologists to be the randomly located works of primitive ancestors, prehistoric structures have been the subject of a lifetime’s research by Tom who now challenges all the preconceptions concerning them.
Here are the keys to the numbered locations on the two diagrams:
"Prehistoric Isosceles Stellar Arrangement" (above): A. Silbury Hill, Wilts. B. Crickley Hill, Glos. C. Low Barrow, Berkshire/Oxfordshire border. 1. Fin Cop Camp, Derbyshire. 2. Arminghall stone circle, Norfolk. 3. Vanguard Way tumulus, Sussex. 4. Whitehawk Camp, Sussex. 5. Dudsbury Camp, Hampshire. 6. Posbury Camp, Devon. 7. Five Barrows, Somerset. 8. Llech Gron standing stone, Wales.
"Ecclesiastic Geometry" (home page): All locations are parish churches except No. 1 which is Wells Cathedral in Somerset. 2. Barton St David. 3. Tollard Royal. 4. Pulham. 5. Winterbourne Cerne. 6. West Lulworth. 7. Uplyme. 8. Branscombe. 10. Pitminster. 11. Wiveliscombe. A. Mosterton. B. Evershot. C. Uploders. No. 9 has been left out to avoid over-complicating the diagram but it represents a potential further extension of the system.
New book from the man who's revolutionising
the study of prehistory
The independent researcher Tom Brooks, from Devon, England, has launched a DVD and website, and now a new book, to promote his ground-breaking work. The first part of the DVD features a podcast interview I made with Tom last year – now accompanied by striking visuals – and the second part, images of historic sites and 12 geometric charts. These really are documents of discovery, for Tom's work will change forever your view of our ancient ancestors, and the nature and purpose of their camps, barrows and stone circles. It proves that our Stone Age forebears of 4,000-6,000 years ago were not merely members of primitive, warring tribes but a people of great sophistication and ingenuity.
"I hope to get some recognition for my work, not just personally, but for the geometry I have discovered which indicates we had an intelligence here 5,000 years ago which is way beyond expectation," says Tom.
Since Tom's book, The Hand of Man: Britain's Prehistory Decoded, was published five years ago (it's now out of print), I've been championing his findings because I believe them to be of epoch-making importance.
His lifelong research, based upon the true position of each ancient site relative to all others according to the Ordnance Survey National Grid, reveals that all are related geometrically in a network of isosceles triangles – those that have two sides of equal length – and are aligned with remarkable accuracy over great distances.
A vast network across Southern England and Wales is focused on Silbury Hill, Wiltshire, and, indeed, seems to have been directed from there, explaining at long last the purpose of the largest man-made mound in Europe.
A major implication is that the perceived sacredness of these ancient sites does not necessarily arise from any inherent qualities, but from this geometry, the principles of which are generally thought not to have been recognised until the Greeks at least 2,000 years later. Another is that the network of leys discovered (or perhaps rediscovered) by Alfred Watkins, the Hereford antiquarian, inventor and visionary, in the 1920s, and still pursued avidly today by ley hunters, was part of the system now revealed by Tom in its full glory.
Astonishingly, Tom has also discovered that medieval cathedrals, churches, abbeys and so on are laid out in the landscape according to the same geometric principles, implying that the ancient knowledge had been preserved and handed down, or somehow rediscovered, by the ecclesiastical builders of that time.
The DVD, together with a CD-ROM of back-up statistics, is available at £17.50, including postage and packing, from Tom's website www.prehistoric-geometry.co.uk - see link on Resources page.
* Those with an interest in British antiquities will be interested to learn of Tom Brooks' new book, Prehistoric Geometry in Britain, which he has produced by hand in A4 format, a signed and numbered edition limited to 150 copies that includes 32 sketched illustrations and 18 highly detailed fold-out charts to demonstrate the accuracy of the layout on our landscape created by the ancient surveyors 5,000 years ago.
The focal point of these arrangements is Silbury Hill and the charts make clear how isosceles triangles were developed from the great mound (see chart, right - Silbury is the pole of the spiral) and then extended to create long-distance alignments of ancient units to reach from coast to coast and to all points of the compass. An extraordinary feature of this work is that all the calculated distances conform to today's Ordnance Survey point-to-point, or above-ground measurement rather than the geographic distance if travelled on foot or by wheeled transport.
"The form of measurement, combined with the knowledge that our prehistoric sites are seen at their best from above, suggests that such sophisticated geometry could not have been the work of primitive beings," said Tom, "but infers the possible involvement of some outside agency."
Prehistoric Geometry in Britain: The Discoveries of Tom Brooks can
be obtained for the special price of £13.90, including postage and packing.
From the Daily Telegraph, London, September 15, 2009
Prehistoric man 'used crude sat nav'
Prehistoric man navigated his way across England using a crude version of sat nav based on stone circle markers, historians have claimed.
They were able to travel between settlements with pinpoint accuracy thanks to a complex network of hilltop monuments. These covered much of southern England and Wales and included now famous landmarks such as Stonehenge and The Mount.
New research suggests that they were built on a connecting grid of isosceles triangles that 'point' to the next site. Many are 100 miles or more away, but GPS co-ordinates show all are accurate to within 100 metres.
This provided a simple way for ancient Britons to navigate successfully from A to B without the need for maps.
According to historian and writer Tom Brooks, the findings show that Britain's Stone Age ancestors were ''sophisticated engineers'' and far from a barbaric race. Mr Brooks, from Honiton, Devon, studied all known prehistoric sites as part of his research.
He said: ''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. ''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.
''Is sat-nav as recent as we believe; did they discover it first?''
Mr Brooks analysed 1,500 sites stretching from Norfolk to north Wales. These included standing stones, hilltop forts, stone circles and hill camps. Each was built within eyeshot of the next. Using GPS co-ordinates, he plotted a course between the monuments and noted their positions to each other.
He found that they all lie on a vast geometric grid made up of isosceles 'triangles'. Each triangle has two sides of the same length and 'point' to the next settlement. Thus, anyone standing on the site of Stonehenge in Wiltshire could have navigated their way to Lanyon Quoit in Cornwall without a map.
Mr Brooks believes many of the Stone Age sites were created 5,000 years ago by an expanding population recovering from the trauma of the Ice Age. Lower ground and valleys would have been reduced to bog and marshes, and people would have naturally sought higher ground to settle.
He said: ''After the Ice Age, the territory would have been pretty daunting for everyone. There was an expanding population and people were beginning to explore.
They would have sought sanctuary on high ground and these positions would also have given clear vantage points across the land with clear visibility untarnished by pollution. ''The triangle navigation system may have been used for trading routes among the expanding population and also been used by workers to create social paths back to their families while they were working on these new sites.''
Mr Brooks now hopes his findings will inspire further research into the navigation methods of ancient Britons. He said: ''Created more than 2,000 years before the Greeks were supposed to have discovered such geometry, it remains one of the world's biggest civil engineering projects.
''It was a breathtaking and complex undertaking by a people of profound industry and vision. We must revise our thinking of what's gone before.''
Prehistoric Geometry in Britain: the Discoveries of Tom Brooks is now on sale priced £13.90.
A spiralling portal to other worlds
The 5,000-year-old Stoney Littleton long barrow, which stands on a hillside overlooking the Wellow Brook near the village of Wellow in Somerset, a few miles south of Bath, is special not only because it is the only known monument of its kind with three pairs of side chambers within, but because of the splendid ammonite cast on the standing stone on the lower part of the left-hand door jamb of the entrance-way (see pictures below).
This is a remarkable illustration of the neolithic people's interest in fossils and other geological formations - and in spiral forms and patterns which, at locations such as this, I believe, are an indicator of an understanding of the flow of cosmic energies, and perhaps the marker of a shamanistic portal to other worlds, as well as of the spiralling geometry which Tom Brooks has discovered underlying the positioning of prehistoric sites. A famous example is the megalithic art at the Newgrange "chamber tomb" in Ireland's Boyne Valley where carved spirals decorate the entrance and the gallery beyond.
The uniqueness of the Stoney Littleton long barrow, which is orientated to the midwinter solstice sunrise, lies in its deliberate decoration with a naturally occurring form, a foot in diameter, the remains of an extinct marine mollusc protected by a flat-coiled spiral shell. Fossils of these creatures are found mainly in Jurassic and Cretaceous deposits dating from 208 million to 65 million years ago, and Stoney Littleton is situated on
the south-western extension of what is known geologically as the
Jurassic Belt.
The splendid picture here, taken by Matthew Holbrook on Midsummer's Day, June 24, 2009, shows the sun setting over the long barrow opposite the position of the sunrise at the winter solstice.