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Maen Llia

Welsh Ramblers walks May 2014

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tiompan T
tiompan May 12, 2014 09:27:25
Replying to GLADMAN

GLADMAN wrote:
tiompan wrote:
GLADMAN wrote:
tiompan wrote:
GLADMAN wrote:
tiompan wrote:
tiompan wrote:
GLADMAN wrote:
tiompan wrote:
It’s worthwhile looking at the detail of the relationship between these monuments . An undated cairn is equidistant to Maen Llia and an undated “ ringwork “ . If Maen Llia was also equidistant to the ringwork it would be more noteworthy but more importantly the Coflein comment about Maen Llia “its geometric relationship with nearby Bronze Age monuments points to its prehistoric origins .” This comment along with that for the cairn “The site lies equidistant from Maen Llia and concentric 'hengiform' earthwork within the triangle and thus is probably related to them.” Is nonsense , the other monuments have not been dated to the BA and since when did a couple of equidistant monuments indicate a relationship , where are the precedents ?
Another monument has been introduced into the equation , an undated platform which is also described as being equidistant to Maen Llia and the “ringwork” , it’s 143 m from the stone but due to the diameter of the ringwork it could also be described as being 126m from the cairn . Again there are not two monuments equidistant from Maen Llia . If there is any degree of saliency in these “relationships “ then just as Google earth has produced relationships between obscure monuments from all over the globe and Giza or Stonehenge we will find the old Ley hunters will be out with their rulers , measuring and finding large scale and small scale relationships everywhere .
btw it was not David leighton who first noted this ,it was Bill Griffiths in the late 60's .
I've always been on the way to - or coming home from - somewhere else to stop off and take a proper look at this grouping of monuments. Seems it'll be worthwhile at some point.

Just out of interest, what would be the statistical likelihood of two monuments just happening to randomly be equidistant from another? If it's pretty low... wouldn't that imply a reasonable chance the latter was used as a reference point for the others?

The mimimum is two and that is what we have in thsi case . I think the likelihood for two is high , I seem to remember one bloke who wrote of a "grid " of equidistant monuments , that was on the macro scale ,but it would apply on the micro too . Imagine how many you could find in the Stonehenge landscape ? ,you might even get past the minimum particularly if you can include undated monumnets ,as above , and sites from different periods . Despite the "“its geometric relationship with nearby Bronze Age monuments points to its prehistoric origins .” I can't think of of any examples where equidistant spacing of monuments was considered intentional in a UK prehistoric setting . Why bother ? comes to mind and also moderns need for imposing their knowledge and ideas on data ,so often abused by metrologists , archaeoastronomers and anybody who can count /measure .
I'll ask the Mam C to bring a tape measure..... if they are indeed equidistant I admit I will be hard pressed to accept random placement as a plausible explanation. Depends on the accuracy, but if it is (near enough) spot on I disagree that the likelihood in such a small sample of monuments is high.
Why ?
Why should the probablity be high that the monuments here are not connected in some manner? What would be the generally accepted way of calculating such odds?
They may well be connected ,that is they are in the same area and possibly even from the same period but the why ? was in relation to seeing some intention in the equidistance .
being aware of how much care the BA peoples apparently took in monument placement, I would find the odds that two could randomly be equidistant from another far too long to seriously consider.
In all the cases you allude to what you consder salient is their placement in the landscape not their equidistance .Everyone who knows their monuments comments ,whether it is subjective or not doesn't matter ,what does is that they don't mention equidistance .
If siting was due to equidistance then the actual siting in the landscape would not be taking the landscape into account , it would be entirely due to measure not aesthetics .
That two monumnets should be equidistant is to be expected given the number monuments to choose from ,that applies to both micro and macro scales . The same can be said of ley lines .Further , it is only two , the minimum possible and that is also taking into account the 28 m of margin of error for the diamters . Bearing in mind the equidistance is purely on a map , how do you imagine it might have been achieved over 300m ? I look forward to seeing your report with the tape measure .

G GLADMAN
GLADMAN May 12, 2014 20:52:13
Replying to tiompan

tiompan wrote:
That two monumnets should be equidistant is to be expected given the number monuments to choose from ,that applies to both micro and macro scales
That's the point I can't appreciate without an understanding of how such a likelihood would be determined. Why is it to be expected, bearing in mind the small number of sites? What would be the calculation to conclude that the chances of two (out of a mere handful of) sites being the same distance from a third due to random placement was high?