Alexander Thom - Later Use of His Work

Later Use of His Work

Thom's proposed length for the Megalithic yard has been reused as such in several controversial books that claim this unit of measurement is a subdivision of the Earth's circumference in an alleged 366-degree geometry. One such book is 'Civilization One: The World is Not as You Thought It Was', by Christopher Knight and Alan Butler who propose the 366 geometry theory.

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." David George Kendall had previously argued that pacing would have created a greater difference in measurements between sites, he concluded after investigation for the Royal Academy, that "The hypothesis of a smooth, non-quantal distribution of circle diameters (for Scottish, English and Welsh true circles) is thus rejected at the 1% level."

Douglas Heggie casts doubt on Thom's suggestion 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".

In his book Rings of Stone: The Prehistoric Stone Circles of Britain and Ireland. Aubrey Burl calls the megalithic yard "a chimera, a grotesque statistical misconception."

In his book Genes, Giants, Monsters and Men, Joseph P. Farrell states, "If Thom is right, the development of human history will have to be rewritten." This Farrell surmises is why Thom encounters such opposition from certain groups.