Prehistory Decoded

  Figure 8A from T. Darvill (2022), "Keeping time at Stonehenge", Antiquity 96, 319-335. Last year, Timothy Darvill's paper made the headlines: Stonehenge could have been used as a solar calendar. It seemed to make a lot of sense. After all, solsticial alignments and calendars go together, like cheese and biscuits, and Stonehenge is famous for its solsticial alignments. Indeed, Darvill suggested the calendar was kept in time by observing the summer sunrise or winter solstice (or both). This is the way it was supposed to work; If we consider only the large megaliths of the 'Stage 2' construction, circa 2620-2480 BCE, then... 1. There are apparently 30 upright stone megaliths in the outer Sarsen ring. Although many are missing now. there is archaeological evidence for all of them. These can obviously be used to count the days of each 30-day month. 2. Do this 12 times and you get 360 days. 3. The final 5 'epagomenal' days can be counted with the trilithon hor

  This is a great cartoon from a forthcoming article by Marc Young that he's allowed me to share. It's funny, but actually expresses the most important concept in science, namely 'model efficiency'.  Otherwise known as Occam's razor, it expresses the concept that the simplest explanation tends to be correct. In other words, the theory that can explain more observations with less input data should be preferred. In research papers this concept is often expressed in terms of 'parsimony'. My favourite way of expressing this principle is "If it looks like an elephant, walks like an elephant and sounds like an elephant, it's a ******* elephant". The cartoon applies this concept to the Younger Dryas impact debate, but I use exactly the same principle in the latest revision of my 'Lunisolar' paper.

  Had a good chat with Sammy. Thanks Sammy!