Archaeologists Versus Astronomers - The Stones and the Stars: Building Scotland's Newest Megalith - page 4

F IG . 1.1 Professor Alexander Thom at his home in Dunlop, Ayrshire (Photo
by Gavin Roberts, 1978)
Alexander Thom, professor of Engineering Sciences at Oxford
(Fig. 1.1 ), had by that time devoted 40 years of study to megalithic
sites in Britain, much of it with the assistance of his son, Dr.
Archie Thom. His ideas as to the purposes of the ancient builders
were based on personally conducted surveys at nearly 400 mega-
lithic sites. So far, however, his published results had appeared
only in mathematical journals, except for his first paper on the
subject, which had appeared in the Journal of the British Astro-
nomical Association in 1954. Otherwise, his work was known
only to acquaintances such as Archie Roy, who had published his
own survey of the Arran site in 1963. So far, Thom's effect on
the archaeological world had been minimal; but now the lid came
off. Entering the controversy in 1964 with articles in New Scien-
tist , Thom followed up with summaries of his work in topic form
under the titles Megalithic Sites in Britain (1967) and Megalithic
Lunar Observatories (1971) [ 7 ]. They could hardly have been more
different in tone from Stonehenge Decoded , but their opponents
treated them as all of a kind.
From Thom's studies he concluded that the ancient builders
had been engaged in a long-term program of lunar observations,