The survey hypothesis, if accepted, will lmprove our understanding of many aspects of Neolithic society. Some suggestions for potential wider implications are below.
The arrival of agriculture
Was the standard approach of arriving Anatolian Farmers to survey a region early on to decide how to use it (where to clear? where to farm?), to enable communication, and perhaps to enable some form of government? The survey enclosures provided ready-made meeting places because their location was known. Settlement also often soon followed, with the banks perhaps offering some defence against predators.
Surveys in France and the Carnac stones
The hypothesis leads to a new interpretation of the Carnac stones. There are stone circles and alignments in Brittany but not elsewhere in France. Did they start experimenting with the circle techniques in Brittany and plan to adopt them across a wider region? If so, it might make sense to quarry a lot of menhirs and store them in readiness. The alignments in the Carnac area comprise about 3000 stones. This is a substantial number, but it is only enough for 100-150 circles with 30- 20 stones in each.
The surveyors would want to be able to order stones of varying heights so that the circle would work in the landscape they were considering. Hence, the quarried stones were laid out in rows so they could be picked as required. The lines were set far enough apart for selected stones to be dragged out on a sledge. There are stone circles at the end of some of the Carnac rows which is consistent with the circles being set up and checked before the stones were dispatched. The large number of stones in the ‘warehouses’ is consistent with an intention for all the stones required for the circles in a given area, to be sent together in one or more ‘menhir-trains’. Such an approach would enable the surveyors to finish working an area before moving on. Furthermore, it would make sense logistically because sledge crews could be rotated for rest or injury, teams would be able to help each other at difficult obstacles, and a single maintenance team could provide repair services to multiple sledge crews.
Recumbent Stone Circles (RSCs)
These are found in Aberdeenshire and south west Ireland. The precisely levelled recumbent stone, often with two ‘flankers’ either side, has been shown to align towards the arc of the moon at its major stand still. The additional insight suggested by our work is that it was important for the moon observers to know their precise geographic location, which is what the circle of stones enabled.
Rock art and Grooved ware
A trigger for the development of the Neolithic art and pottery designs which can include complex triangular geometry has yet to be identified. Was the inspiration the net of survey lines arising from the Cursus survey? Is some of the most complex and carefully drawn ‘rock art’ a representation of part of the actual survey? Even a form of map?
Neolithic Society
Stonehenge and other megalithic monuments have told us that Neolithic society in the British Isles could be highly organised and sometimes, at least, had significant labour resources available. Our surveying insight compounds these impressions. Furthermore, the monuments tell us of a society that innovates and seeks to improve the accuracy and efficiency of what they do.
Development of geometry, surveying and cartography
It has long been suspected that the Ancient Greeks recorded, rather than invented, much of the geometry that they passed down to us. The Neolithic surveys establish that people living in Western Europe were proficient in basic geometry and surveying more than 3000 years before the Ancient Greeks. That is also more than 1000 years before the first pyramids were built in Egypt.
Alfred Watkins and ‘ley lines’
If our ideas find a footing, then many of the observations and ideas made by Watkins (1925) will turn out to be very well founded. For example, the Long Man of Wilmington (Watkins page 97) was almost certainly a surveyor holding two sighting staffs. We differ from Watkin’s interpretation of ‘ley lines’ in that we think they are hints of ancient survey lines rather than ancient tracks. Of course, to create a straight track, they would need have surveyed it. Whilst Watkins suggested the end purpose were his ‘straight tracks’, we suspect the survey was to plan agriculture, to enable settlers to stay in touch, and probably to enable some form of continued coordination or control.