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Cracking the Stone-Age Code

Professor Alexander Thom asserts his theory that Stonehenge and other megalithic sites were used to record time and predict solar and lunar eclipses.

First transmitted in 1970, Professor Alexander Thom asserts his theory that Stonehenge and other megalithic sites were used to record time and predict solar and lunar eclipses.Magnus Magnusson looks at Thom's evidence and hears what different archaeologists think of the suggestion that Stone Age Britons could make such elaborate calculations. If Thom's theory is correct, previous archaeological certainties about the knowledge and ability of people in the Stone Age would be overturned.

50 minutes

Last on

Sat 31 Oct 1970 20:15
Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Two except East, South East & Yorkshire

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Did You Know?

Alexander Thom's book Megalithic Sites in Britain, published in 1967, caused huge controversy within academic archaeology. Thom's premise that Stone Age culture used complex mathematics and applied this to constructing monuments undermined the progressional idea of culture as continually advancing from savagery to civilisation. Glyn Daniel commissioned the eminent astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle to consider Thom's evidence for Archaeology magazine. Hoyle found that Thom's theories were essentially accurate.

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Chronicle: Archaeology on Television Collection

This programme is online as part of the Chronicle: Archaeology on Television Collection.