Journal of Lithic Studies Special Issue guest editor Terence Meaden - plus DVD

Submitted by Andy B on Saturday, 02 December 2017 Page Views: 2560

**Drombeg Stone Circle** submitted by KenWilliams : Sunset at Drombeg Stone Circle, 20th December 2006. The winter solstice sun sets in the notch in the hills seem through the portals and over the axial stone. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Formally titled Advances in Understanding Megaliths and Related Prehistoric Lithic Monuments, the latest Journal of Lithic Studies is now available, with guest editor Terence Meaden, who writes: "A new approach to the science of archaeoastronomy is presented and a practical prehistoric calendar has been rediscovered. The key is watching the position of the rising sun on important dates of the calendar while also observing shadow-casting by positioned male-principle stones that make union with a waiting stone classifiable as female."

The issue is dedicated to the session Standing Stones and Megalithic Monuments in Context which was held at the XVII UISPP (International Union of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences) World Congress, held in Burgos, 1-7 September 2014

Contents:
Editorial: Advances in understanding megaliths and related prehistoric lithic monuments - G. Terence Meaden

Drombeg Stone Circle, Ireland, analyzed with respect to sunrises and lithic shadow-casting for the eight traditional agricultural festival dates and further validated by photography - G. Terence Meaden

Stonehenge and Avebury: Megalithic shadow casting at the solstices at sunrise - G. Terence Meaden

Knowth passage-grave in Ireland: An instrument of precision astronomy? - Kate Prendergast

The Star-Beings and stones: Petroforms and the reflection of Native American cosmology, myth and stellar traditions - Herman E. Bender

GIS-based landscape analysis of megalithic graves in the Island of Sardinia (Italy) - Riccardo Cicilloni, Marco Cabras

The Journal of Lithic Studies is an Open Access journal so all papers are freely downloadable from here:

http://journals.ed.ac.uk/lithicstudies/issue/view/160 or https://doi.org/10.2218/jls.v4i3

Terence also gave a lecture earlier this month to Astronomy Ireland

A DVD is now available: Advances in Archeoastronomy

A new approach to the science of archaeoastronomy is presented and a practical prehistoric calendar has been rediscovered.

Some astronomers and archaeologists spent decades over-analyzing stone circles and their plans, and failed to find acceptable solar or lunar solutions or stellar solutions.

One may mention Professors Norman Lockyer (early 20 th century), Alexander Thom (1960s to 1980s), Clive Ruggles (1980s to 2000s), and John North (1990s, 2000s)—but the simple pragmatism of the non-scientific Neolithic and Bronze Age builders beat them all.

None of the researchers saw that the solution lay in watching the position of the rising sun on key dates of the calendar while also observing shadow-casting by positioned male-principle stones that make union with a waiting stone classifiable as female.

The ancients did this for calendrical farming purposes and probably too for reasons linked to their eternal quest for fertility success aided by reassuring ritual.

Terence Meaden was born in Wiltshire near Stonehenge and Avebury. He wanted to study archaeology at Oxford University but too late was told that the entrance examination required classical Greek and Latin and his school was not teaching Greek. So he took the physics entrance examination and had a university career becoming an associate professor of physics by age 31.

Later he retired early and returned to Oxford and got undergraduate and master's degrees in archaeology. He has specialized in the Neolithic and Bronze Age for 30 years.

To order a copy of the lecture on DVD go to the bottom of this page here
http://www.astronomy.ie/lecture201711.php

DVDs cost €10 each includes P&P to the UK.

Contributor Bio for Andy B: Megalithic Portal Founding Editor.

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