Stonehenge

I am all for the scientific method and I appreciate that today's scientists are 'standing on the shoulders of giants'. They can only keep testing hypotheses and using new techniques and technology which was not available to their predecessors. Most advances seem to be the result of team work, but every so often an individual will challenge orthodox thinking and expand our knowledge.
I am not a scientist and simply have a layperson's interest in how the world works and how things fit together. It annoys me that I can't live another 50 years as the pace of discovery is accelerating and I won't be around to see it!

feetle

Elegran I think the outlines are quite clear. I've seen a number of programmes on the Nazco lines, some of them quite sensible. I wonder why they decided to do them and how they co-ordinated the effort?

@Greatnan - "I wonder which scientific 'facts' will be disproved in my lifetime?" - I don't know, but that is hjow science refines itself and gets ever closer to the truth. Falsification is the main duty of scientists.

If the view from the hill reminded them of a bird, say, but needed a bit of adjustment, they could go back down and adjust. The diagrams are pretty sketchy so details were not needed.

Semaphore?

There are theories about giant kites! (Not the birds)

Apparently the Nacza lines are visible from the nearby foothills. I assume no-one had checked that before.

The Uffington White Horse is just down the road and that is on a steep hillside and can be seen clearly from quite a wide area in the Vale of White Horse. That is somewhat different to lines like the Nazca lines that are not visible from, from in their case from any high ground.

Inthis country many of the long straight lines that emanate from prehistoric monuments or just exist within the landscape ( the reeves on Dartmoor, for an example, are territorial boundaries between different groups or tribes of people.

Definitely aliens Lily.

Wow. Water courses? NOT.

Uffington White Horse
www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/48/Uffington-White-Horse-sat.jpg/280px-Uffington-White-Horse-sat.jpg&imgrefurl=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uffington_White_Horse&h=168&w=224&sz=1&tbnid=QD0hd9_sJVua_M:&tbnh=160&tbnw=213&zoom=1&usg=__jKr6j5QKLq0skBzPSQTOaHtxoOQ=&docid=0dR7e5mWn7itgM&itg=1&hl=en-gb&sa=X&ei=5qaoUcm8KJOc0wWs14GwDg&ved=0CDkQ_B0wAQ

Water courses? https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=nazca+lines&client=safari&hl=en-gb&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=46WoUdTfMqOl0QX9j4DoDQ&ved=0CDUQsAQ&biw=1024&bih=672

It explains so much about Homo sapiens.

I prefer to believe in aliens and that god was an astronaut

Water was in short supply. They would have organised it so as to utilise every drop and take it wherever they wanted it. Were their fields in the shapes that later became the "drawings" ? Did the ceremonial walks along the paths regularly define the boundaries, like the annual riding the Marches did/does in the Borders? Maybe they had a tradition of "beating the Boundaries" where youngsters had the boundaries dinned into them by being thumped at each boundary stone? What a pity they did not take photos and send each other texts!

I'm intrigued. The straight lines were already there for the water to follow. Straight lines as in ditches, canals, natural features?

Crop circles fooled many people for a long time - it was fascinating to see how they were actually made. My default setting is scepticism - although I do sometimes find it hard to understand some facts which are counter-intuitive. I know the earth revolves around the sun, but it is certainly very easy to see why people found it hard to believe.
I wonder which scientific 'facts' will be disproved in my lifetime?

This is more down-to-earth literally Apparently the shapes can be seen from the nearby foothils - and one writer likens them to a giant Rorschach test.

Hundreds of links about the Nacza sites, but so far can't find any reference to the programme I half remember. did find this which says it was a ceremonial site but does not explain how the shapes originally happened. Looking at the aerial photos, I must say that it takes a fair bit of imagination to see the images as the objects they are meant to represent.

I have seen a TV programme that explained them perfectly reasonably, Lilygran but unfortunately I can't remember much of it. Something about the geology and the prevailing winds starting the lines off naturally, then people following them because they looked intentional. I shall google them and see whether that programme comes up.

What about the Nazca lines in Peru? Or the Uffington White Horse?i have no time for explanations involving prehistoric alien spaceships, but how did the designers do it?

Certain geological strata can be pretty straight I guess. Seen from the air a really good earthquake fault, too, can be straight.
Someone once said there were no straight lines in nature, but this is not true. A quick visit to a geological section of a museum with a good collection of "minerals" will illustrate that - in Perth WA for instance there are some fine examples of quite large crystals that are perfect cubes etc. Not a wavy line in sight. The molecules in the crystals are lined up on a perfect mathematical grid.

Depends on the terrain. The South American lines are on a pretty even slope, not much to deflect the water sideways. same with Stonehenge. It makes more sense than alien spaceship runways.

Quite right, AKA, but in this instance a straight line was the shortest route.