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I'm going to be talking about A-V-Breece.

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It's wonderful sight just up the road.

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I assume you all know it.

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And for those of you perhaps who are here for the first time,

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you must make sure that you have a look at A-V-Breece

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and it's associated ancient sites.

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Now, as Anthony said, I knew from the first time

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that I went to A-V-Breece.

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I was going to write about the place.

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But it took another 30 years to develop my understanding

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to a point where I felt I had something to say.

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And fundamental to that was the archaeology,

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the archaeologists have done a lot more work on the site.

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And we finally got the dating, the chronology.

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They only came up with radio carbon dates

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for Silvery Hill in the last year or two,

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which was a fantastic step forward.

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And the advent of astronomy programs

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that I could run on my computer and save me the trouble

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of doing all the mathematics.

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So this research is very much grounded

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in the data, the archaeology, and anthropology of A-V-Breece,

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and the astronomy.

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But don't worry.

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I'm not going to lose you in the mathematics.

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OK?

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That's a promise.

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Gentleman at the back.

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So A-V-Breece, our ancestors, and the stars.

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And as you're all probably well aware,

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work on the prehistoric sites in Britain

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has shown how interested in the heavens were our ancestors.

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It's long known the interest in the solar cycles

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at Stonehenge.

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There have been writing about it for years.

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And the work of people like Alexander Tom

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has shown how deeply our ancestors were involved

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with the lunar cycles, too.

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How closely they followed, not only the sun, but also the moon.

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But the sun and moon were their daily fare.

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Everything they did was coordinated,

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according to what was going on in the sky.

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And not just the calendar.

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The sun and the moon, of course,

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formed the rhythm of the day in the night and the seasons,

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the moon, the weeks, the months.

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But also their relationship with the gods,

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with the divine powers.

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However, they perceived these powers.

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It was the heavens.

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There was an indicator of this divine presence.

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That's one of the earth.

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But the heavens, too, who have to remember

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the sky brings storms.

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The sky brings lightning.

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The sky can bring all kinds of well-being and trouble.

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So our ancestors' lives were governed

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to a large measure by what came from the sky.

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And so close, when the city was their interest in the heavens,

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and so deep and so long standing was their observance,

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that I became convinced that they were also profoundly following the stars,

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that their star knowledge was as great as their stellar and their lunar,

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sorry, their solar and their lunar knowledge.

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And the story really began in my hometown,

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Glassnobrie, where I became very interested in an ancient mound,

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that's on the fourth hill of Glassnobrie.

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On the summit of Windmill Hill, there's a mound.

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Nobody knows anything about it.

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But what is interesting is if you stand on this mound

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and look at Glassnobrie's tour on the horizon,

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it's well placed for the rising of sun and moon and stars.

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So I've put up here, for example, in the late...

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Oh, in the late 5th millennium BC,

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the three stars that formed the belt of Orion

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were rising up the steep northernmost flank of the tour.

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I thought that was rather neat.

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And as you know, the belt of Orion points to the brightest star in the sky,

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Sirius.

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And Sirius rises after Orion in the same location on the horizon.

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Oh, it'll take me a minute to get my hand up.

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And I noticed that from the mound on Windmill Hill,

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that over a period of a few thousand years, over the tour,

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that Sirius moved due to a procession from rising

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on the back of the tour around, well, 4,200, 4,000,

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to be sea.

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So by the end of the fourth millennium, it's rising up

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the steep northern flank of the tour.

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So the angle of star is marked by the angle of the steep northern

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flank of Glassnobrie tour.

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Now the interesting thing about this particular alignment

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is that it coincides with the rising of the midwinter sun.

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So in this diagram courtesy of Robin,

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we have a demonstration of how from the mound on Windmill Hill,

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the sun can be observed rising up the northern flank of Glassnobrie tour

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at midwinter.

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So this is the lowest point that the sun reaches

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in its path across the eastern horizon.

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Now this is for about the year zero, but in prehistory,

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say 2000 BC, 2000 years earlier,

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the sun wasn't so much rising up the side of Glassnobrie tour,

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but was rising slightly below it.

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And to see the sunrise at Winter Solstice,

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it would have been necessary to cut a few little notches

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in the side of the tour.

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And then you would have seen the top rim of the sun flashing

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in the notches.

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And this would have enabled some quite precise astronomy.

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Some quite precise calendar keeping to be done at this date.

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And we know, again, from the work of people like Alexander Tom,

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that this kind of event interested our prehistoric ancestors a great deal.

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And around about 3,200 BC, the rising of the Winter Solstice sun

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coincided with the rising path of serious,

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which in some traditions is known as the sun behind the sun,

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the esoteric sun, the inner sun.

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Now, just dwelling on this alignment for a little bit longer.

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Again, we're standing on the mound on Winn Millhill,

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looking at the tour.

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And the interesting thing about the Winter Solstice sunrise,

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up the tour's flank, is that at this moment,

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in the 26,000 year, there are about cycle of procession,

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the Winter Solstice sun is over the Galactic Center.

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In other words, due to procession, the date when the sun

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is over the Galactic Center changes over the course of the 26,000 year cycle.

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And it's only in this era that the rising of the Winter Solstice sun,

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the position of the Winter Solstice sun,

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coincides with the Galactic core.

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This, now, it's a matter of debate how long this alignment takes place.

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It doesn't happen on one day.

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It won't be December the 23rd, 2012.

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It's a whole era, because the diameter of the sun is pretty big.

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The Galactic core itself is pretty big.

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And the two are coinciding for a course of several decades.

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Or perhaps, if you see it in terms of the sun crossing the dark rift,

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the marks the center of the galaxy,

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this era lasts about a hundred years.

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Now, in the 26,000 year cycle of procession,

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you can see we can fudge it a bit.

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This is the era.

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This, we are now in the middle of the era when the Winter Solstice sun

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is over the center of the Galactic.

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Now, conversely, the summer Solstice sun

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is pointing in the other direction.

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So if you were to be on the mound or anywhere

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at the Summer Solstice this year,

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and you were looking at the rising sun,

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maybe you were at Stonehenge,

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and if you were at Stonehenge, Summer Solstice,

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you would have been looking into Gemini

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at the so-called Galactic Anti-Senter.

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In other words, you would have been looking away.

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You would have been on an alignment of the Galactic core,

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the Earth, and then outward into deep space

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away from the center of our galaxy.

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The in 2010, we had quite an extraordinary alignment

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take place where there was an eclipse of the moon

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on the Winter Solstice, which meant that in 2010,

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there was an alignment of Galactic core,

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sun, Earth, moon, and Galactic Anti-Senter.

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Now, that kind of thing where you have alignment

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of the nodes, of the moon, the sun, and stars,

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I think is just the kind of thing

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that would have vastly entertained our ancestors,

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and they would have been groping for the meaning

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of that kind of event.

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So finally, we come back to Avery,

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and we're standing on another Windmill hill here at Avery,

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and I begin here because this is really the first

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well documented site in the area.

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This low hill, Windmill hill, has on its summit

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what is called a cause-wide enclosure built

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in the fourth millennium BC, three concentric rains of Earthworks,

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and the archaeologists have found all sorts of evidence

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in the bottom of the ditches there,

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including evidence for an autumn and winter occupation,

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which involves ceremonial feasting, ritual sacrifice

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of various types of animal, including cattle.

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Now, from the summit of Windmill hill,

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looking southeast, you can make out

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and make out Martin Selhill on the ridge

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of the west-six chalk escarpment.

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There it is, Martin Selhill.

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From Windmill hill, that is the position

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of the Winter Solstice Sunrise.

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So I feel we've got a pretty good Winter Solstice

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mid-winter alignment going on here.

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Not only have we got mid-winter sun rising on this alignment,

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but we've also got mid-summer moon.

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This could have been important too.

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Down below it, here, lies the future site of Avery.

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Avery is not yet in existence,

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but you can see it's on the alignment

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from Windmill hill to the Winter Solstice Rising Sun.

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Now over here, you can see just below the horizon,

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West Can It Long Barrow, constructed in the mid-fourth

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Millenium BC, and then, couple of thousand years later,

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you can see Silver Hill.

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Pretty much on the same alignment as the western end

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of West Can It, and out of sight,

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below the other side of the West Can It's Charciscatment,

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is Napel.

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Another ancient cause-weight enclosure.

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These sites, Windmill Hill and Napel,

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these so-evidence of occupation

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from the Masonolithic period.

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So we're going back thousands upon thousands of years.

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This area was a key area to be settled by our ancestors,

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this mainly because the soil here is very light.

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It was summit of hills.

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There was a lot of grassland, a lot of gain.

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It was a very good place to be at that time.

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Now, what, if anything, is taking place

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astronomically on the alignment.

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And what emerges is here we are.

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From Windmill Hill on this alignment,

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Napel West Can It Long Barrow, and eventually Silver Hill,

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we find a cluster of stars rising on this alignment.

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Here is due south,

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and as you know, any star low on the southern horizon

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will rise in this area,

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reaches zenith, due south, and then set in this area over here.

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And at that time, at the time of Windmill Hill,

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mid-fourth millennium BC, the southern cross was visible,

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rising over West Can It.

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So here I've shown the southern cross at about 1 a.m.

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Comes up here by 3 a.m.

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Alpha Centurion is rising over West Can It.

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So southern cross, that's the pointer to the hidden southern pole

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and here we have Alpha Centurion, Beta Centurion,

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pointing themselves to the southern cross.

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Alpha Centurion is the third brightest star in the sky.

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When serious rise is over here,

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on the Winter Solstice alignment,

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in mid-winter early in the night,

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it's long set in the West by the time Alpha Centurion rises.

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The second brightest star in the sky canopus

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is always invisible in the northern hemisphere.

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So in other words, Alpha Centurion is the second brightest star

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in the sky.

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I think our ancestors will be very interested in this star

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and in these constellations.

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Now what is absolutely fascinating

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about these star groups, the constellation of crocs

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or the southern cross, an alpha and beta Centurion,

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is that they are embedded in the Milky Way.

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And as they rose here, the Milky Way,

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at an angle like this,

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was setting down towards the West.

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Just before 3 a.m., about 23 a.m.

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As the southern cross reached its zenith, due south,

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an alpha Centurion appeared in this era

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the Milky Way levelled around the entire horizon.

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This event only happens once

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in the 26,000-year cycle of procession at this latitude.

254
00:19:41,720 --> 00:19:42,560
Are you with me?

255
00:19:43,480 --> 00:19:46,320
So in this era,

256
00:19:46,320 --> 00:19:49,160
lasting for about a thousand years

257
00:19:49,160 --> 00:19:53,520
from about 4,000 BC to about 3,000 BC,

258
00:19:53,520 --> 00:19:57,640
exactly the period when our ancestors were living

259
00:19:57,960 --> 00:20:01,160
building window hill and West Canitland Barra,

260
00:20:02,240 --> 00:20:07,240
these stars deep in the southern sky

261
00:20:07,440 --> 00:20:12,040
were indicators of a phenomenal galactic event.

262
00:20:12,040 --> 00:20:15,440
When the entire Milky Way became visible

263
00:20:15,440 --> 00:20:20,440
around the entire horizon and astonishing event,

264
00:20:20,640 --> 00:20:22,080
we will never see it.

265
00:20:22,080 --> 00:20:26,640
We won't happen again for about another 17,500 years.

266
00:20:28,040 --> 00:20:29,160
His West Canit.

267
00:20:30,840 --> 00:20:35,840
It's interesting that it was so remotely closed

268
00:20:37,360 --> 00:20:39,960
around 2,500 BC,

269
00:20:39,960 --> 00:20:43,960
and this was the time when these stars

270
00:20:43,960 --> 00:20:46,840
of the southern cross and alpha and beta Centurion

271
00:20:46,840 --> 00:20:51,200
were no longer rising over the Lombaro.

272
00:20:51,200 --> 00:20:56,200
And we can now turn our attention to Avery.

273
00:21:03,160 --> 00:21:07,360
Here's an aerial view of Avery Circle today,

274
00:21:08,720 --> 00:21:10,680
and thanks to Photoshop.

275
00:21:13,400 --> 00:21:18,400
Here is a view of how it kind of looked.

276
00:21:18,640 --> 00:21:21,080
How it kind of looked.

277
00:21:21,080 --> 00:21:24,520
This is a rather idealized presentation

278
00:21:26,000 --> 00:21:28,000
around the middle of the third millennium.

279
00:21:29,960 --> 00:21:32,680
We've got the huge,

280
00:21:33,920 --> 00:21:36,560
how to ditch and bank.

281
00:21:38,120 --> 00:21:42,480
Dog into the white chalk would have been a brilliant white.

282
00:21:44,200 --> 00:21:46,440
We've got the great inner circle.

283
00:21:47,440 --> 00:21:50,360
We've got two inner circles.

284
00:21:50,360 --> 00:21:52,920
Sorry, the great outer circle I should say.

285
00:21:52,920 --> 00:21:55,240
The two inner circles, the southern inner circle,

286
00:21:55,240 --> 00:21:57,240
the northern inner circle,

287
00:21:57,240 --> 00:22:00,760
at the center of which is the cove.

288
00:22:01,960 --> 00:22:04,480
Center here, the tallest stone on the site,

289
00:22:04,480 --> 00:22:07,400
no longer in existence, the obelisk,

290
00:22:07,400 --> 00:22:10,040
the so-called D feature,

291
00:22:10,040 --> 00:22:12,240
and over here we have a cluster of stones

292
00:22:12,240 --> 00:22:14,520
that formed the southern entrance.

293
00:22:14,600 --> 00:22:19,200
And the stump of what remains of the ringstone.

294
00:22:20,080 --> 00:22:24,600
You can see avenues leading off from at least two

295
00:22:24,600 --> 00:22:27,040
of the four entrances to the hinge.

296
00:22:29,520 --> 00:22:34,520
Now, this is what the hinge sort of ended up looking like,

297
00:22:37,200 --> 00:22:41,240
maybe by 2400, 2300 BC,

298
00:22:42,240 --> 00:22:44,480
but what did it look like originally?

299
00:22:44,480 --> 00:22:46,680
Before the inner circles were built.

300
00:22:48,080 --> 00:22:53,080
And this is pretty close approximation

301
00:22:54,840 --> 00:22:57,600
to what was here initially.

302
00:22:58,560 --> 00:23:03,560
It's most likely that these stones that form the cove

303
00:23:05,120 --> 00:23:06,280
and the obelisk.

304
00:23:08,440 --> 00:23:11,960
And now the southern entrance

305
00:23:12,000 --> 00:23:14,520
was the first megalith on the site.

306
00:23:16,440 --> 00:23:19,960
Not long after that, the hinge was built.

307
00:23:22,000 --> 00:23:24,280
The inner circles come much later.

308
00:23:26,200 --> 00:23:30,240
I think the inner circles were to do more to do

309
00:23:30,240 --> 00:23:32,040
with the sun and the moon,

310
00:23:32,040 --> 00:23:34,520
the solar and the lunar cycles.

311
00:23:34,520 --> 00:23:39,520
But you can see that there is a main axis,

312
00:23:42,160 --> 00:23:46,960
indeed, this axis goes through

313
00:23:47,800 --> 00:23:52,800
as many as 12 of the 18 stones

314
00:23:55,360 --> 00:23:58,880
that are considered primary to the site.

315
00:23:58,880 --> 00:24:03,160
So we can consider this to be a pretty good alignment.

316
00:24:03,160 --> 00:24:06,920
And it's approximately three, 40 degrees,

317
00:24:06,920 --> 00:24:08,720
the one, 60 degrees.

318
00:24:08,720 --> 00:24:11,760
So what is going on on this alignment?

319
00:24:11,760 --> 00:24:12,840
What are we looking at?

320
00:24:12,840 --> 00:24:14,640
Or more to the point?

321
00:24:14,640 --> 00:24:16,960
What were the ancient people looking at?

322
00:24:16,960 --> 00:24:20,800
Have we got views to the horizon along the alignment?

323
00:24:20,800 --> 00:24:21,840
What were they doing?

324
00:24:24,200 --> 00:24:25,440
So here we are.

325
00:24:26,400 --> 00:24:31,400
We're standing in the middle of the southern inner circle

326
00:24:34,880 --> 00:24:36,320
and we're looking south

327
00:24:36,320 --> 00:24:41,800
and here is the southern entrance

328
00:24:43,800 --> 00:24:46,400
and with all the stones in place

329
00:24:48,840 --> 00:24:53,840
and a couple of posts put in a known posthole socket there.

330
00:24:56,240 --> 00:24:58,720
This one I have merely hypothesized

331
00:24:58,720 --> 00:25:02,960
because it's under the road and we don't know what's there.

332
00:25:02,960 --> 00:25:05,720
But I think there's enough evidence to show

333
00:25:05,800 --> 00:25:10,720
that we have quite a wonderful frame view

334
00:25:13,160 --> 00:25:16,720
to the southern horizon formed by wait and hell.

335
00:25:18,120 --> 00:25:22,120
I think it's clear that the arrangement of the hinge,

336
00:25:23,800 --> 00:25:27,160
the early stones and then the subsequent stones

337
00:25:27,160 --> 00:25:32,160
was all about framing this view of the southern horizon

338
00:25:32,160 --> 00:25:34,040
and especially wait and hell.

339
00:25:35,880 --> 00:25:39,480
Now if we look at our main axis,

340
00:25:40,560 --> 00:25:43,600
the one-sixty degree axis,

341
00:25:43,600 --> 00:25:46,400
you see it's at the beginning,

342
00:25:46,400 --> 00:25:49,920
the bottom of wait and hell to anything rising,

343
00:25:49,920 --> 00:25:51,320
deep in the south,

344
00:25:53,000 --> 00:25:56,680
will appear here and then ascend

345
00:25:57,600 --> 00:26:00,360
which is zenith here before setting over here.

346
00:26:02,160 --> 00:26:04,440
I think this demonstrates

347
00:26:04,440 --> 00:26:09,040
that the people who built windmill hell

348
00:26:09,040 --> 00:26:13,240
and we're looking at the stars of the southern cross

349
00:26:13,240 --> 00:26:15,440
and Alphanbeeta Centurai

350
00:26:15,440 --> 00:26:18,600
were also interested in those stars

351
00:26:19,600 --> 00:26:21,320
at the site of Avery

352
00:26:22,840 --> 00:26:27,840
and that the great outer circle

353
00:26:29,800 --> 00:26:32,800
when it was originally built with the white chalk

354
00:26:32,800 --> 00:26:36,520
thrown up onto the bank was meant to be a model

355
00:26:36,520 --> 00:26:37,800
of the Milky Way.

356
00:26:40,240 --> 00:26:44,440
So here we are, here's a view at night,

357
00:26:46,800 --> 00:26:47,760
midwinter,

358
00:26:50,160 --> 00:26:54,280
serious as long set with Orion in the West.

359
00:26:56,560 --> 00:27:00,240
We're looking through the southern entrance to wait and hell

360
00:27:00,240 --> 00:27:01,680
and here's the Milky Way.

361
00:27:03,360 --> 00:27:07,800
Rising up at this angle over the horizon.

362
00:27:11,720 --> 00:27:13,320
Couple of hours later,

363
00:27:14,480 --> 00:27:17,840
the Milky Way is dropping towards the West

364
00:27:20,360 --> 00:27:23,440
and the top three stars of the southern cross

365
00:27:23,440 --> 00:27:26,160
appear over the main alignment

366
00:27:26,160 --> 00:27:27,680
at the foot of Wadenhill.

367
00:27:27,680 --> 00:27:29,800
By about two 30 A.M.

368
00:27:31,800 --> 00:27:34,800
The top three stars of the southern cross

369
00:27:38,800 --> 00:27:43,880
appear directly over the southern entrance above Wadenhill.

370
00:27:45,800 --> 00:27:50,360
Beta Centurai is appearing on the main alignment.

371
00:27:50,360 --> 00:27:53,280
Now look at the date, it's 2500 BC,

372
00:27:53,280 --> 00:27:56,200
most of these stones would be in place

373
00:27:56,200 --> 00:27:59,400
if we'd been here 500 years earlier,

374
00:27:59,400 --> 00:28:02,480
we would have seen the whole of the southern cross.

375
00:28:02,480 --> 00:28:05,160
We would have seen the star that formed the base

376
00:28:05,160 --> 00:28:06,280
of the southern cross

377
00:28:06,280 --> 00:28:08,680
and we also would have seen Alpha Centurai.

378
00:28:09,640 --> 00:28:12,960
But over the course of the last 500 years,

379
00:28:12,960 --> 00:28:15,440
these stars are dropping to the south.

380
00:28:15,440 --> 00:28:17,960
They're being lost due to procession

381
00:28:17,960 --> 00:28:20,000
and the stars are no longer visible

382
00:28:20,000 --> 00:28:23,760
above the horizon or they're being lost due

383
00:28:23,760 --> 00:28:25,600
to the extinction angle.

384
00:28:25,600 --> 00:28:29,320
And you can see, I've drawn a kind of a black line

385
00:28:29,320 --> 00:28:34,160
around the horizon where any lower magnitude stars

386
00:28:34,160 --> 00:28:35,160
will be lost.

387
00:28:36,960 --> 00:28:39,720
So here we have it.

388
00:28:42,400 --> 00:28:47,400
Avery Hange encircled by the Milky Way.

389
00:28:48,960 --> 00:28:51,640
360 degrees around the horizon

390
00:28:52,640 --> 00:28:57,120
is constructed as a mirror of the cosmos.

391
00:28:58,640 --> 00:29:02,520
The Hange itself represents the Milky Way.

392
00:29:04,280 --> 00:29:07,880
Its main alignments are looking at key stars

393
00:29:09,000 --> 00:29:13,000
to the south, as well as to the north.

394
00:29:13,720 --> 00:29:18,680
They're looking at the rising and the setting of sickness

395
00:29:18,680 --> 00:29:21,600
to the north, but I don't have time to go into that.

396
00:29:21,600 --> 00:29:26,600
Here, the sickness is the northern cross, the mirror

397
00:29:27,720 --> 00:29:29,720
to the southern cross in the south.

398
00:29:31,360 --> 00:29:36,360
And the whole Hange and the monument,

399
00:29:36,960 --> 00:29:41,160
it's as though they wanted to bring in every cycle

400
00:29:41,160 --> 00:29:43,880
of the sun and the moon and the stars

401
00:29:43,880 --> 00:29:46,400
into the body of the monument.

402
00:29:46,400 --> 00:29:49,920
And I think in this picture, I'm even suggesting

403
00:29:49,920 --> 00:29:56,840
that here we have an imaginary line drawn

404
00:29:56,840 --> 00:29:58,840
through the center of the Milky Way.

405
00:29:59,840 --> 00:30:04,560
And it's crossed in the east by the Eccliptic,

406
00:30:05,640 --> 00:30:09,160
the path of the sun, the moon and the planets,

407
00:30:09,160 --> 00:30:10,240
and in the west.

408
00:30:12,280 --> 00:30:16,960
So if you have this crossing point of the Eccliptic

409
00:30:16,960 --> 00:30:18,400
and the galaxy in the west,

410
00:30:19,360 --> 00:30:23,760
the southern cross in the south, this crossing point

411
00:30:24,880 --> 00:30:28,360
of the Eccliptic and the Milky Way in the east,

412
00:30:28,360 --> 00:30:30,480
and the northern cross in the north,

413
00:30:30,480 --> 00:30:35,240
you have a fourfold division of the Milky Way,

414
00:30:35,240 --> 00:30:38,800
which is represented in on the ground in Avery

415
00:30:38,800 --> 00:30:40,440
by the four entrances.

416
00:30:40,440 --> 00:30:45,440
Now just to give you a little bit,

417
00:30:54,080 --> 00:30:56,840
try to persuade you a little bit more

418
00:30:56,840 --> 00:31:01,080
that these were the astronomical events

419
00:31:01,080 --> 00:31:03,720
that our ancestors were really looking at.

420
00:31:03,720 --> 00:31:05,960
I just want to bring your attention briefly

421
00:31:06,920 --> 00:31:10,720
to the so-called D feature, or D facade,

422
00:31:12,080 --> 00:31:14,280
that is considered to be a man,

423
00:31:14,280 --> 00:31:16,800
the earliest stones on the side.

424
00:31:19,080 --> 00:31:22,480
And if you look along the top of it,

425
00:31:23,760 --> 00:31:27,680
it forms a very nice alignment to the horizon

426
00:31:29,040 --> 00:31:31,800
and anything rising over Wadenhill.

427
00:31:32,760 --> 00:31:35,520
And you can see the large stones

428
00:31:35,520 --> 00:31:38,480
that form the southern entrances beyond it.

429
00:31:38,480 --> 00:31:41,040
The ring stone is behind this stone,

430
00:31:41,040 --> 00:31:42,920
and if the ring stone had a partner,

431
00:31:42,920 --> 00:31:45,840
which something it did, it would have been behind this stone.

432
00:31:48,360 --> 00:31:50,960
If we were to put a box here,

433
00:31:54,840 --> 00:31:57,160
it's quite a precise line of sight,

434
00:31:58,120 --> 00:32:04,120
and just bring up a few lines for the rising of stars.

435
00:32:05,120 --> 00:32:07,120
We find in that box,

436
00:32:07,120 --> 00:32:09,320
we've got the rising of beta-sensual,

437
00:32:09,320 --> 00:32:11,560
I beta-cruisus and delta-cruisus,

438
00:32:12,880 --> 00:32:15,360
rising throughout this period,

439
00:32:16,720 --> 00:32:21,720
but exactly here, round about 2720.

440
00:32:21,880 --> 00:32:26,080
So at this point, I can move to a decade

441
00:32:26,080 --> 00:32:27,840
for precision.

442
00:32:27,840 --> 00:32:30,560
And at this point, it's the astronomy

443
00:32:30,560 --> 00:32:33,560
that allows us to date the archaeology.

444
00:32:33,560 --> 00:32:36,760
And indeed, the archaeologists think

445
00:32:36,760 --> 00:32:39,480
that that would be right in the middle

446
00:32:39,480 --> 00:32:42,000
of the most likely dates for the construction

447
00:32:42,000 --> 00:32:43,600
of the D feature.

448
00:32:43,600 --> 00:32:46,000
Now, I don't know who's proving what here,

449
00:32:46,000 --> 00:32:51,000
but I'd like to think that this is more evidence to show

450
00:32:51,000 --> 00:32:52,280
that the people who built a,

451
00:32:52,280 --> 00:32:53,880
if we've brought the monument builders,

452
00:32:53,880 --> 00:32:58,880
were looking were very interested in these stars

453
00:32:58,880 --> 00:33:01,760
that accompanied the rising of the Milky Way.

454
00:33:03,640 --> 00:33:04,640
So here it is.

455
00:33:07,360 --> 00:33:11,160
Very difficult to get this all in one picture,

456
00:33:11,160 --> 00:33:12,960
so I've broken it up into three.

457
00:33:14,920 --> 00:33:18,280
This is standing on the northern bank,

458
00:33:18,360 --> 00:33:21,120
looking along the main axis.

459
00:33:22,280 --> 00:33:25,560
There's a stone in the cove.

460
00:33:25,560 --> 00:33:28,480
There's the other, the back stone of the cove.

461
00:33:28,480 --> 00:33:30,760
There's the obelisk behind it.

462
00:33:32,040 --> 00:33:33,880
So this is the main alignment,

463
00:33:33,880 --> 00:33:37,480
we're looking at the rising point of these crucial stars.

464
00:33:38,880 --> 00:33:40,360
Here it is in close up.

465
00:33:42,000 --> 00:33:45,040
I mean, it's just a jumble of stones, isn't it?

466
00:33:45,040 --> 00:33:47,520
But if you look down this alignment,

467
00:33:49,440 --> 00:33:52,600
you can see a clear view to this horizon.

468
00:33:54,600 --> 00:33:57,720
And here we are looking towards the western entrance

469
00:33:57,720 --> 00:34:00,160
and the back captain, back captain Abinou.

470
00:34:04,200 --> 00:34:07,560
Here's the big stone, the Swindon stone,

471
00:34:07,560 --> 00:34:09,680
by the northern entrance.

472
00:34:09,680 --> 00:34:14,680
Now I don't know if it ever looked like this,

473
00:34:15,400 --> 00:34:20,240
I imagine that the site was probably always a working progress,

474
00:34:20,240 --> 00:34:23,240
but this is pretty good, it's an ideal representation.

475
00:34:25,080 --> 00:34:29,120
And here we have the West Canit Avenue,

476
00:34:29,120 --> 00:34:32,200
and again, just to have a bit of fun with Photoshop,

477
00:34:32,200 --> 00:34:34,320
here it is reconstructed.

478
00:34:35,800 --> 00:34:37,160
I do enjoy doing that.

479
00:34:38,120 --> 00:34:40,000
You can even improve the weather.

480
00:34:44,640 --> 00:34:49,640
And I like to think that the monument builders

481
00:34:50,840 --> 00:34:54,400
would have perhaps have seen these avenues as arms

482
00:34:54,400 --> 00:34:58,880
of the galaxy, or even the path of the eclectic,

483
00:34:58,880 --> 00:35:01,640
the path of the sun, the moon and the stars.

484
00:35:02,280 --> 00:35:06,640
Now here we are at the terminus,

485
00:35:06,640 --> 00:35:09,320
the end of the Canit Avenue,

486
00:35:09,320 --> 00:35:14,320
at the ugly concrete posts that mark the sanctuary,

487
00:35:14,520 --> 00:35:17,160
and again with the aid of Photoshop,

488
00:35:18,160 --> 00:35:19,680
I've done a reconstruction.

489
00:35:21,280 --> 00:35:26,280
We have two circles of stone

490
00:35:26,680 --> 00:35:31,240
with a timber structure inside that was most likely

491
00:35:31,240 --> 00:35:34,960
cemented with bucrania, ox horns.

492
00:35:36,160 --> 00:35:38,800
We don't know that it does seem likely.

493
00:35:42,040 --> 00:35:47,040
Now, here we are at the end of the second avenue,

494
00:35:48,160 --> 00:35:51,320
the Western Avenue, all the back hampton Avenue,

495
00:35:51,320 --> 00:35:53,720
and we're looking at the Adam and Eve stones.

496
00:35:55,840 --> 00:36:00,840
So again, the Avenue sweeps in from Aivbury,

497
00:36:01,520 --> 00:36:06,520
comes up to Adam, and thanks to the archaeologists

498
00:36:08,960 --> 00:36:10,920
who have excavated this site,

499
00:36:10,920 --> 00:36:15,320
we now know the sequence of monuments were on this site,

500
00:36:15,320 --> 00:36:17,280
the culminated in a cove.

501
00:36:18,600 --> 00:36:23,040
Adam was just one stone, the formed part of a cove.

502
00:36:23,600 --> 00:36:26,600
We've got enough detail to make a guess

503
00:36:26,600 --> 00:36:29,080
at the astronomy of this cove.

504
00:36:29,080 --> 00:36:33,600
And the first glance, it looks like a winter solstice alignment.

505
00:36:33,600 --> 00:36:37,600
The winter solstice sun tracks down here,

506
00:36:37,600 --> 00:36:42,600
but goes over the central alignment, the rise here.

507
00:36:44,600 --> 00:36:46,600
Again, we could have a mid-Scentral alignment,

508
00:36:46,600 --> 00:36:49,720
but it's a little bit more than a little bit more.

509
00:36:49,880 --> 00:36:54,640
Again, we could have a mid-Summer moon alignment,

510
00:36:54,640 --> 00:36:58,160
but you can see the extremes that reached by the moon.

511
00:36:58,160 --> 00:37:01,800
Yes, they could be observed at this site,

512
00:37:01,800 --> 00:37:06,800
but, slap down the middle of the alignment of the long stones cove,

513
00:37:06,800 --> 00:37:09,800
we come back to the rise in a serious.

514
00:37:10,840 --> 00:37:13,800
It seemed that at the end of this avenue,

515
00:37:13,800 --> 00:37:18,080
they were particularly interested in the first magnitude style,

516
00:37:18,080 --> 00:37:21,360
the greatest star in the sky, the rising of Sirius,

517
00:37:21,360 --> 00:37:25,480
and I hypothesized that it was linked with the harvests.

518
00:37:25,480 --> 00:37:28,240
What makes this especially interesting

519
00:37:28,240 --> 00:37:33,760
is that if you track this alignment over the horizon,

520
00:37:33,760 --> 00:37:41,240
so here we are, long stones cove, at the end of the Beckhamton Avenue,

521
00:37:41,240 --> 00:37:47,960
over the summit of Foley Hill, goes down to the summit of Sirubri Hill.

522
00:37:47,960 --> 00:37:53,080
So Sirubri Hill is invisible from the long stones cove,

523
00:37:53,080 --> 00:37:56,720
but it's a pretty darn good alignment.

524
00:37:56,720 --> 00:38:02,080
And they does seem to be evidence for the observation

525
00:38:02,080 --> 00:38:07,680
for the heliarchal setting of Sirius over the summit of Foley Hill.

526
00:38:07,680 --> 00:38:11,200
So here we've got the heliarchal rising from Avery,

527
00:38:11,200 --> 00:38:13,200
we've got the heliarchal setting.

528
00:38:13,200 --> 00:38:15,960
So this prolonged interest in Sirius

529
00:38:15,960 --> 00:38:20,240
seems to have been maintained over thousands of years.

530
00:38:20,240 --> 00:38:24,960
Now, coming back to Avery,

531
00:38:24,960 --> 00:38:33,560
and this is my partner, a fellow who I did most of this research with,

532
00:38:33,560 --> 00:38:38,600
and unfortunately, she can't be here today, so she's here in Spurut,

533
00:38:38,600 --> 00:38:42,040
and we just fell in love with these stones.

534
00:38:42,040 --> 00:38:43,840
They're just so it's squizzed.

535
00:38:44,000 --> 00:38:47,360
And what I would do is I would photograph them from different angles,

536
00:38:47,360 --> 00:38:55,360
and then take them home, and do a mirror line down there.

537
00:38:55,360 --> 00:38:59,800
It's such a fun way of looking at the stone,

538
00:38:59,800 --> 00:39:05,920
and it brings out features that aren't immediately obvious.

539
00:39:05,920 --> 00:39:08,560
Now, I had a dozen of these to show you,

540
00:39:08,560 --> 00:39:11,920
but Pepper said, leave them out, you don't have enough time.

541
00:39:12,000 --> 00:39:17,000
So I'm sorry, that's the only one you're going to get to enjoy.

542
00:39:17,000 --> 00:39:27,520
But returning now to the site of the obelisk,

543
00:39:27,520 --> 00:39:33,400
the biggest stone on the site in the middle of the southern inner circle,

544
00:39:33,400 --> 00:39:38,840
and looking south, sorry,

545
00:39:39,000 --> 00:39:43,840
to the southern entrance,

546
00:39:43,840 --> 00:39:50,080
to where these crucial southern stars were rising,

547
00:39:50,080 --> 00:39:52,120
over Wade and Hill,

548
00:39:52,120 --> 00:39:58,840
I now want to bring to your attention to where they were setting, okay?

549
00:39:58,840 --> 00:40:03,640
And in this era, the middle of the third millennium,

550
00:40:03,720 --> 00:40:07,360
we find these stars, a reach to zenith, 180,

551
00:40:07,360 --> 00:40:14,360
do south about here, and are setting in this part of the horizon over here.

552
00:40:14,360 --> 00:40:17,720
Now, I call this stone, the silveries stone,

553
00:40:17,720 --> 00:40:21,240
because as I'm sure many of you are aware,

554
00:40:21,240 --> 00:40:23,800
did a few stand by the concrete marker

555
00:40:23,800 --> 00:40:26,840
that marks the position of the obelisk,

556
00:40:26,840 --> 00:40:30,200
and look, and take a step,

557
00:40:30,280 --> 00:40:32,920
two steps to one side,

558
00:40:32,920 --> 00:40:37,160
silverie Hill appears from behind this stone,

559
00:40:37,160 --> 00:40:40,520
and you can just make out the summit of it

560
00:40:40,520 --> 00:40:44,360
at the base of Wade and Hill on the horizon.

561
00:40:44,360 --> 00:40:49,560
So we've got a good alignment from here to this notch,

562
00:40:49,560 --> 00:40:53,360
the west-six-chorcus garment, and Wade and Hill.

563
00:40:54,640 --> 00:40:57,440
And low and behold,

564
00:40:57,520 --> 00:41:01,200
we find that the final three stars of the southern cross

565
00:41:01,200 --> 00:41:05,600
are setting on this alignment,

566
00:41:05,600 --> 00:41:07,920
late in the third millennium,

567
00:41:07,920 --> 00:41:11,760
forming a triangle or a pyramid

568
00:41:11,760 --> 00:41:16,240
that is mimicked by the shape of silverie Hill.

569
00:41:17,640 --> 00:41:19,840
And indeed, if you were to imagine so,

570
00:41:19,920 --> 00:41:25,280
silverie Hill extended to a cone, it would fit exactly.

571
00:41:28,720 --> 00:41:32,400
So here's a view of silverie,

572
00:41:32,400 --> 00:41:38,400
that we now know was begun at some point of the 2500 BC,

573
00:41:38,400 --> 00:41:40,720
probably about 2450.

574
00:41:42,000 --> 00:41:45,200
We don't really know what they did in the first few decades.

575
00:41:45,200 --> 00:41:46,320
They were up to something.

576
00:41:47,280 --> 00:41:51,200
And then gradually over the subsequent years,

577
00:41:51,200 --> 00:41:54,960
maybe a few decades, maybe 150 years, maybe 250 years,

578
00:41:54,960 --> 00:41:56,960
in the most.

579
00:41:56,960 --> 00:42:00,640
They completed the monument,

580
00:42:00,640 --> 00:42:03,120
this huge mound, the greatest earth in the mountain in Europe.

581
00:42:04,320 --> 00:42:09,120
We don't know how much more was ever on the top.

582
00:42:10,320 --> 00:42:14,720
It does seem likely that it did form more of a pyramid,

583
00:42:15,040 --> 00:42:19,200
more of a cone, and they're in the Saxon or the Roman,

584
00:42:19,200 --> 00:42:21,520
and then subsequently the Saxon era,

585
00:42:21,520 --> 00:42:24,960
the top was flattened, and a settlement

586
00:42:24,960 --> 00:42:27,360
that could be defended with built-on top.

587
00:42:27,360 --> 00:42:30,560
Well, we never know because the top has been shared off.

588
00:42:30,560 --> 00:42:32,720
Possibly some people have hypothesized,

589
00:42:32,720 --> 00:42:37,760
the big post was on top of the hill to complete the pyramid.

590
00:42:37,840 --> 00:42:45,520
Here in this photo recently taken by Lucy Pringol,

591
00:42:45,520 --> 00:42:50,160
we've got, we have a pyramid,

592
00:42:50,160 --> 00:42:54,320
crop circle appearing, pointing to silver hill,

593
00:42:54,320 --> 00:42:56,120
on waitin' hell,

594
00:42:58,120 --> 00:42:59,840
waitin' hell,

595
00:42:59,840 --> 00:43:01,280
woken hell,

596
00:43:04,240 --> 00:43:06,560
a Romano British guard,

597
00:43:07,120 --> 00:43:10,800
there was a Roman settlement here,

598
00:43:12,320 --> 00:43:15,440
they think that there was possibly a temple

599
00:43:15,920 --> 00:43:18,880
to this deity up in this area.

600
00:43:19,920 --> 00:43:24,240
At some point, maybe in the Roman period, maybe subsequently

601
00:43:24,240 --> 00:43:29,200
in the Saxon period, I know the Saxons got up the war sorts of stuff at Avery,

602
00:43:29,200 --> 00:43:32,800
and continued with a reverence of the site.

603
00:43:33,760 --> 00:43:36,720
But to my mind,

604
00:43:42,640 --> 00:43:47,360
the fact that we have these remarkable alignments

605
00:43:48,400 --> 00:43:51,360
from Avery to the southern horizon,

606
00:43:53,360 --> 00:43:54,560
to the rising

607
00:43:56,560 --> 00:43:58,880
and then the setting of these

608
00:43:59,840 --> 00:44:02,000
stars that are no longer visible,

609
00:44:04,240 --> 00:44:05,600
I think is beyond doubt.

610
00:44:06,640 --> 00:44:13,600
I think that the top, the setting of the top three stars of the southern cross,

611
00:44:13,600 --> 00:44:18,480
into the area of the horizon, marked by sobering hell,

612
00:44:20,800 --> 00:44:24,240
is far beyond simply being a coincidence.

613
00:44:24,320 --> 00:44:28,320
I think our ancestors built sobering hell to mark the setting point

614
00:44:32,560 --> 00:44:33,520
of the southern cross, or at least the three stars that remained

615
00:44:37,520 --> 00:44:40,800
of the southern cross in the third millennium BC.

616
00:44:42,640 --> 00:44:44,560
And you see, this is the point,

617
00:44:44,560 --> 00:44:47,200
because when they were on windmill hell,

618
00:44:47,200 --> 00:44:50,480
or when the may-solithic people were in the area,

619
00:44:50,480 --> 00:44:53,440
they would have seen the whole of the southern cross.

620
00:44:54,240 --> 00:44:55,360
They could not have missed it.

621
00:44:56,480 --> 00:45:00,640
Something so beautiful, so low in the southern sky,

622
00:45:00,640 --> 00:45:03,760
they brought with it the entire Milky Way,

623
00:45:03,760 --> 00:45:05,760
could not have been missed by them.

624
00:45:05,760 --> 00:45:07,600
It must have entered their mythology,

625
00:45:08,160 --> 00:45:09,840
it must have entered their star law.

626
00:45:10,880 --> 00:45:13,920
And over the course of the third millennium,

627
00:45:14,720 --> 00:45:19,360
these stars were being lost from sight.

628
00:45:20,320 --> 00:45:24,560
The Milky Way, instead of forming a complete circle

629
00:45:24,560 --> 00:45:29,200
around the entire horizon, was being lost to the south.

630
00:45:30,800 --> 00:45:36,480
Instead of this great wheel of the cosmos appearing around Avery Henge,

631
00:45:37,040 --> 00:45:44,960
the sky by 2000 BC must have seemed to have gone completely out of kilter.

632
00:45:45,760 --> 00:45:50,000
These sites were built to last,

633
00:45:51,200 --> 00:45:55,120
and we know they were used for observation

634
00:45:56,000 --> 00:45:58,640
for centuries, if not thousands of years.

635
00:45:59,840 --> 00:46:04,320
In other words, they could not have missed this loss

636
00:46:05,520 --> 00:46:09,600
of the stars in the southern sky due to precession.

637
00:46:10,560 --> 00:46:13,440
It would have been obvious, in fact, I don't even know,

638
00:46:13,440 --> 00:46:16,800
I'm still trying to argue why it would have been obvious.

639
00:46:18,000 --> 00:46:20,880
This is exactly the kind of thing they were looking at.

640
00:46:22,800 --> 00:46:24,480
They were looking at precession.

641
00:46:27,280 --> 00:46:30,720
Now, we know what precession is.

642
00:46:31,440 --> 00:46:33,840
We can measure it, we can calculate it.

643
00:46:34,720 --> 00:46:38,640
But they didn't have our equipment, they didn't have our cosmology.

644
00:46:38,640 --> 00:46:41,600
They had a completely different cosmology to us.

645
00:46:42,240 --> 00:46:45,200
So what would they have made of this loss?

646
00:46:46,240 --> 00:46:51,200
What would they have viewed this loss of ancestral stars

647
00:46:51,760 --> 00:46:56,960
stars that would have formed a major event in their midwinter skies?

648
00:46:58,320 --> 00:47:03,360
Well, if you think about it, the southern cross points

649
00:47:04,560 --> 00:47:08,800
to the hidden southern pole below the horizon.

650
00:47:09,200 --> 00:47:16,000
The northern cross, sickness, points to the visible northern pole

651
00:47:16,560 --> 00:47:22,560
above the horizon, you can see the circular pole of stars.

652
00:47:22,720 --> 00:47:27,040
You can watch the stars go around the northern pole.

653
00:47:27,840 --> 00:47:32,320
You can't see the stars that go around the southern pole.

654
00:47:33,840 --> 00:47:36,880
But you could, in the fourth millennium BC,

655
00:47:37,600 --> 00:47:41,200
you could see the southern cross, you could see Althus and Gerai.

656
00:47:41,760 --> 00:47:45,360
And gradually these stars were going below the horizon.

657
00:47:46,800 --> 00:47:49,680
Now, I believe that in the ancient world,

658
00:47:51,360 --> 00:47:57,600
they lived according to what was essentially a tri-partite cosmology,

659
00:47:58,240 --> 00:48:04,400
a three-fold cosmology, a lower world, a middle world, and an upper world.

660
00:48:05,360 --> 00:48:08,560
And these three were connected by an axis,

661
00:48:09,840 --> 00:48:14,000
the axis Mundi or the pole between the worlds.

662
00:48:14,640 --> 00:48:20,000
And this pole ran from the northern pole in the sky

663
00:48:21,280 --> 00:48:28,000
to the hidden southern pole and was indicated by the stars that rotated around them.

664
00:48:28,720 --> 00:48:34,000
And their myths, their stories, would have been told by the stars

665
00:48:34,560 --> 00:48:37,120
that pointed to them and revolved around them.

666
00:48:38,080 --> 00:48:42,320
So the southern cross, pointing to the hidden southern pole,

667
00:48:42,480 --> 00:48:49,520
would have pointed to the underworld, the lower world, the world of the ancestors.

668
00:48:51,600 --> 00:48:58,800
The world inhabited by the great mystic beings who lived

669
00:48:58,880 --> 00:49:05,920
in the land of darkness were hidden in the darkness of the womb.

670
00:49:08,000 --> 00:49:14,640
That went below the dark horizon in mid-winter

671
00:49:15,440 --> 00:49:24,480
and there dwelt in the primal cave, the cave that ultimately in the spring gave rebirth

672
00:49:25,520 --> 00:49:27,120
and brought with it the new year.

673
00:49:28,000 --> 00:49:32,160
And this is the kind of symbolism expressed by Westcane at Longbaro,

674
00:49:32,880 --> 00:49:34,480
just as an author of us here.

675
00:49:35,680 --> 00:49:43,280
While the northern stars spoke about the realm of the above,

676
00:49:44,240 --> 00:49:49,280
the beings who dwelt in the upper worlds, the beings of light,

677
00:49:49,280 --> 00:49:51,840
the gods, the goddesses, the immortal ones.

678
00:49:52,720 --> 00:49:55,920
You know, this is the kind of cosmology that comes down

679
00:49:55,920 --> 00:49:59,200
in the Saxon literature, the Celtic literature,

680
00:49:59,520 --> 00:50:03,600
and in the ancient shamanic literature of the northern hemisphere.

681
00:50:04,800 --> 00:50:06,560
I don't think I'm making this up,

682
00:50:07,200 --> 00:50:12,560
that we could see sobery hell as the home of the ancestors.

683
00:50:13,840 --> 00:50:19,200
So when they built this hell, they were making a home for the ancestors,

684
00:50:19,280 --> 00:50:23,200
the ancestral stars that had been visible for thousands of years,

685
00:50:23,200 --> 00:50:25,360
going down below the horizon.

686
00:50:26,560 --> 00:50:28,160
They were making a home.

687
00:50:28,160 --> 00:50:31,920
So they were saying, okay, you're being lost from sight,

688
00:50:32,560 --> 00:50:38,240
but we'll make some way for you to live until the time when you call come back again.

689
00:50:39,680 --> 00:50:44,720
Now, whether they could calculate, whether they had the knowledge, which I doubt,

690
00:50:44,720 --> 00:50:46,880
because I don't think they thought like we did,

691
00:50:47,600 --> 00:50:52,640
that these stars would come back again after another cycle of procession,

692
00:50:54,800 --> 00:51:00,720
well, never know, but I think they kind of knew in their gods that they might.

693
00:51:01,920 --> 00:51:04,480
So this is a home for the ancestral star beings,

694
00:51:05,520 --> 00:51:10,560
a place which the stars went into, and in 17 and half thousand years,

695
00:51:11,280 --> 00:51:13,520
they might come back out of again.

696
00:51:13,680 --> 00:51:20,880
And I have spoken for almost an hour, so I'd better call it a day.

697
00:51:29,920 --> 00:51:31,920
Thank you.

698
00:51:32,560 --> 00:51:34,560
APPLAUSE

699
00:51:38,560 --> 00:51:41,600
Thanks Nick, that was absolutely fantastic.

700
00:51:41,600 --> 00:51:45,600
I've heard this talk in different forms over several years, three or four times,

701
00:51:45,600 --> 00:51:47,680
and I'm really getting the hang of it at last.

702
00:51:50,000 --> 00:51:53,440
We've just tightened for one quick question before we move on.

703
00:51:53,440 --> 00:51:55,600
Anybody like to ask a question? Yes.

704
00:52:02,240 --> 00:52:12,320
Just to ask, serious is still visible in the sky now out of all these stars that you mentioned,

705
00:52:12,320 --> 00:52:20,720
does the serious rising and setting relate to any of these alignments now?

706
00:52:23,120 --> 00:52:24,320
No.

707
00:52:24,320 --> 00:52:24,960
OK.

708
00:52:24,960 --> 00:52:26,640
It's moved.

709
00:52:26,640 --> 00:52:29,120
And serious is an old star.

710
00:52:29,760 --> 00:52:32,880
Something I'm sure the doge on what are green with.

711
00:52:34,880 --> 00:52:41,200
It kind of has its own vagaris, but I think in some ways,

712
00:52:42,000 --> 00:52:45,920
it is a key start understanding the mysteries of this site,

713
00:52:46,640 --> 00:52:50,480
and I think you're right to draw attention back again to it today,

714
00:52:50,480 --> 00:52:52,400
because it does hold secrets.

715
00:52:52,400 --> 00:52:58,480
It is on important alignments, and what those are,

716
00:52:58,560 --> 00:53:01,440
I think, will be revealed in due course.

717
00:53:01,440 --> 00:53:02,720
I think it's a key marker.

718
00:53:03,920 --> 00:53:05,920
Yeah, that's my feeling. Thank you.

719
00:53:28,480 --> 00:53:30,480
you

720
00:53:58,480 --> 00:54:00,480
you