Category Archives: megaliths

Megalithic Quarrying Techniques

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I came across this article today (“Megalithic Quarrying Techniques and Limestone Technology in Eastern Spain“) and thought I’d share it with readers. I get lots of questions about the “impossibility” of quarrying huge stones for megalithic structures, usually with respect to Egypt. This article deals with even older cultures and goes into a nice level of detail about the use of fire for quarrying.  From the abstract:

Evidence in Eastern Spain and in the Balearic Islands indicates that during the building period of the megaliths and thereafter the inhabitants of this region developed a considerable limestone technology. This technology embraced an empirical knowledge of carbonate chemistry and karst geology which enabled them to quarry large limestone blocks to gain a maximum of usable material with a minimum of effort. It appears that one of the quarrying methods used was based on the chemical dissociation by fire of standing stone blocks at their attachment points, a technique hitherto unknown or unreported in the literature.

Pretty cool. Once again, aliens need not apply.

Alien Technology Not Needed in Britain, Either

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Boy, the ancient aliens just can’t catch a break. Now a researcher of Stonehenge and Britain’s other famous bluestones has discovered a workable technology for moving huge stones with the materials available to the prehistorical humans who erected megalithic sites.

2011 isn’t starting well for ancient astronaut acolytes.

Archaeoastronomy: Aliens Need Not Apply

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Came across this online issue of the Journal of Cosmology recently. This issue is all about archaeoastronomy, a fascinating field.

Now the obvious rant:  “All these archaeo-astronomical structures all over the world — this *proves* the aliens landed and gave humankind advanced knowledge of the stars!!”

My equally obvious response: No, it proves that when you’re on the earth, the sky is seen all over the globe — and people observed it and tried to track and “map” its behavior. If you were patient enough, you could do this in your backyard (I don’t recommend marking with megaliths, though — maybe just drawing lines on your picket fence).

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Oldest Pyramids in the World in Bosnia

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This has the scent of paleobabble, but I’ll have to let research takes its course (assuming there is any real research going on at the site). I love the way the guy in the article just sort of knows how these Bosnian pyramids (if that’s what they are) were built.

I’ll be on the lookout for a report on the ancient Bosnians being the first to cross the Atlantic, too.

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Stone Masonry and Engineering at Machu Picchu: No Aliens Needed

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Stone Masonry and Machu Picchu

I recently received and email challenging me to produce a coherent explanation of the architecture and stonework of Machu Picchu and other megalithic sites. The questioner wanted to know how anyone else other than aliens could have produced these sites. My initial response was simply to tell him the basics-that these civilizations had left us truly discernible clues as to how the work was done. That was kind of lazy of me (hey, I was on the road).  Now that I’m back, I’ve decided the topic would make a good re-entry into PaleoBabble for me and readers.

Sorry, it isn’t aliens. I’m also sorry that I don’t have anything sexier than studies by geologists, anthropologists, and engineers to offer. Data is boring, I know.  Oh, well.  At any rate, it’s worth noting that many people like my emailer have basically not read anything in the scientific literature about these sites. Instead, they come armed with books by Zecharia Sitchin, or Erich von Daniken, or the latest HBO special propping up the ancient alien hypothesis.  There viewers and readers are told how impossible it is to get stones lined up adjacently to each other so closely that a playing card can’t go between them.  Or that the stones came from quarries hundreds of miles away. Both of these ideas are inaccurate and, frankly, disparaging to the Inca.

Here are a few articles on the Inca that deal with Machu Picchu and other sites. I trust they will be interesting and informative.

Jean Pierre Protzen, “Who Taught the Inca Stonemasons Their Skills? A Comparison of Tiahuanaco and Inca Cut-Stone Masonry,” The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 56, No. 2 (Jun., 1997), pp. 146-167.

Jean Pierre Protzen, “Inca Quarrying and Stone Cutting,” The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 44, No. 2 (May, 1985), pp. 161-182

Susan A. Niles, “Niched Walls in Inca Design,” The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 46, No. 3 (Sep., 1987), pp. 277-285

One note of warning on these articles. They are not light reading. This is real scholarship, not the fluff produced by Sitchin, von Daniken, etc.

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