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A Megalithic Yard is a unit of measurement, about 2.72 feet (0.83 m), that some researchers believe was used in the construction of megalithic structures. The proposal was made by Alexander Thom as a result of his surveys of 600 megalithic sites in England, Scotland, Wales and Britanny. It was initially regarded as a fringe claim that was ignored and appeared unbelievable to traditional archaeologists. Colin Renfrew reviewed Thom's work and observed arrangements of megaliths in full integers or exact halves of the megalithic yard while Clive Ruggles suggests that the evidence "is at best marginal" and that Thom's evidence can be explained in other ways, for instance the average length of a pace.

Archaeologist Euan Mackie noticed similarities between the MY and a unit of measurement extrapolated from a long, marked shell from Mohenjo Daro and ancient measuring rods used in mining in the Austrian Tyrol. Along with Martin Doutré and Kim Williams he also noted similarities with other measurements such as the ancient Indian Gaz and the Iberian Vara. Jay Kappraff has noted similarity between the Megalithic Yard and the ancient Indus short yard and the Sumerian Shusi, both of 33 inches (0.84 m). E. Fernie also reported that a larger measure proposed by Thom, the Megalithic Rod of 2.5 Megalithic Yards is equal to the Greek fathom of (2.072 metres (6.80 ft)) from studies of the Metrological Relief in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. It has also been suggested that it is the diagonal of a rectangle measuring 2 by 1 Remens. Thom also discovered that the Megalithic Rod could be divided into one hundred and the Meglithic Yard divided into forty, both of which he called the Megalithic Inch of 2.073 centimetres (0.816 in). Thom applied the the statistical lumped variance test of J.R. Broadbent on this quantum and found the results significant.

Clive Ruggles has said that both classical and Bayesian statistical reassessments of Thom's date "reached the conclusion that the evidence in favour of the MY was at best marginal, and that even if it does exist the uncertainty in our knowledge of its value is of the order of centimetres, far greater than the 1mm precision claimed by Thom. In other words, the evidence presented by Thom could be adequately explained by, say, monuments being set out by pacing, with the 'unit' reflecting an average length of pace." Kendall had previously argued that pacing would have created a greater difference in measurements between sites.

Douglas Heggie casts doubt on this as well, stating that his careful analysis uncovered "little evidence for a highly accurate unit" and "little justification for the claim that a highly accurate unit was in use". Margaret Ponting has suggested that artefacts such as the Dalmore Bone found in Callanish, Patrickholme bone bead from Lanarkshire and Dalgety bone bead from Fife in Scotland have shown some evidence of being measuring rods based on the Megalithic Yard in Britain.

Thom suggested that "There must have been a headquarters from which standard rods were sent out but whether this was in these islands or on the Continent the present investigation cannot determine."

References

1. Alexander Thom (12 March 1964). New Scientist. Reed Business Information. pp. 690–. ISSN 02624079 Parameter error in {{issn}}: Invalid ISSN.. Retrieved 19 April 2011.
2. Barbara Ann Kipfer (2000). Encyclopedic dictionary of archaeology. Springer. pp. 344–. ISBN 9780306461583. Retrieved 23 April 2011.
3. Archibald Stevenson Thom (1995). Walking in all of the squares: a biography of Alexander Thom : engineer, archaeoastronomer, discoverer of a prehistoric calendar, the geometry of stone rings and megalithic measurement. Argyll Pub. ISBN 9781874640660. Retrieved 19 April 2011.
4. ^ David George Kendall; F. R. Hodson; Royal Society (Great Britain) (1974). The Place of astronomy in the ancient world: a joint symposium of the Royal Society and the British Academy. Oxford University Press for the British Academy. Retrieved 19 April 2011. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help) Cite error: The named reference "KendallHodson1974" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
5. Colin Renfrew (1973). Before civilization: the radiocarbon revolution and prehistoric Europe, p. 237. Cape. Retrieved 23 April 2011.
6. Euan Wallace MacKie (1977). The megalith builders, p. 192. Phaidon. Retrieved 22 April 2011.
7. Martin Doutré (1999). Ancient Celtic New Zealand, p. 189. Dé Danann Publishers. ISBN 9780473053673. Retrieved 23 April 2011.
8. Kim Williams (1996). Nexus: architecture and mathematics, p. 108. Edizioni dell'Erba. ISBN 9788886888042. Retrieved 23 April 2011.
9. ^ Jay Kappraff (2002). Beyond measure: a guided tour through nature, myth, and number. World Scientific. pp. 237–. ISBN 9789810247027. Retrieved 22 April 2011.
10. John Michell (1978). City of Revelation: On the Proportion and Symbolic Numbers of the Cosmic Temple. Abacus. ISBN 9780349123219. Retrieved 22 April 2011.
11. Broadbent S.R., Quantum hypothesis, Biometrika, 42, 45-57 (1955)
12. ^ David H. Kelley; Eugene F. Milone; Anthony F. (FRW) Aveni (28 February 2011). Exploring Ancient Skies: A Survey of Ancient and Cultural Astronomy. Springer. pp. 163–. ISBN 9781441976239. Retrieved 22 April 2011.
13. Ruggles, Clive (1999). Astronomy in Prehistoric Britain and Ireland. Yale University Press. p. 83. ISBN 978-0300078145.
14. Heggie, Douglas C. (1981). Megalithic Science: Ancient Mathematics and Astronomy in North-west Europe. Thames and Hudson. p. 58. ISBN 0-50005036-8.
15. Margaret Ponting (13 February 2003). "Megalithic Callanish". In Clive Ruggles (ed.). Records in Stone: Papers in Memory of Alexander Thom. Cambridge University Press. pp. 423–441. ISBN 9780521531306. Retrieved 22 April 2011.
16. A. Thom (1976). Megalithic sites in Britain, p. 43. Clarendon. Retrieved 6 April 2011.

• Use dmy dates from April 2011
• Units of length
• Pseudoarchaeology