Ley lines are hypothetical alignments of a number of places of geographical interest, such as ancient monuments and megaliths. Their existence was suggested in 1921 by the amateur archaeologist Alfred Watkins, whose book The Old Straight Track brought the alignments to the attention of the wider public.
The existence of alignments between sites is easily demonstrated. However, the causes of these
alignments are disputed. There are several major areas of interpretation:
Archaeological: A new area of archaeological study, archaeogeodesy, examines geodesy as practiced in prehistoric time, and as evidenced by archaeological remains. One major aspect of modern geodesy is surveying. As interpreted by geodesy, the so-called ley lines can be the product of ancient surveying, property markings, or commonly travelled pathways. Numerous societies, ancient and modern, employ straight lines between points of use; archaeologists have documented these traditions. Modern surveying also results in placement of constructs in lines on the landscape. It is reasonable to expect human constructs and activity areas to reflect human use of lines.
Cultural: Many cultures use straight lines across the landscape. In South America, such lines often are directed towards mountain peaks; the Nazca lines are a famous example of lengthy lines made by ancient cultures. Straight lines connect ancient pyramids in Mexico; today, modern roads built on the ancient roads deviate around the massive pyramids. The Chaco culture of Northeastern New Mexico cut stairs into sandstone cliffs to facilitate keeping roads straight.
New Age: Some writers (widely regarded as pseudoscientific) have claimed that the ley lines and their intersection points resonate a special psychic or magical energy. These theories often include elements such as geomancy, dowsing or UFOs, stating that, for instance, UFO's travel along ley lines (in the way that one might observe that cars use roads and highways). Some similarly believe these points on lines have electrical or magnetic forces associated with them.
Skeptical: Skeptics of the actuality of ley lines often classify them as pseudoscience. Such skeptics tend to doubt that ley lines were planned or made by ancient cultures, and argue that apparent ley lines can be readily explained without resorting to extraordinary or pseudoscientific ideas.
Alfred Watkins and The Old Straight Track
The concept of ley lines was first proposed by Alfred Watkins. On June 30, 1921, Watkins visited Blackwardine in Herefordshire, and went riding near some hills in the vicinity of Bredwardine when he noted many of the footpaths therein seemed to connect one hilltop to another in a straight line. He was studying a map when he noticed places in alignment. "The whole thing came to me in a flash," he would later explain to his son. Some people have portrayed this "flash" as being some sort of mystical experience.
However, some time before Watkins, William Henry Black gave a talk titled Boundaries and Landmarks to the British Archaeological Association in Hereford in September 1870. Here he speculated that "Monuments exist marking grand geometrical lines which cover the whole of Western Europe". It is possible that Watkins' experience stemmed from some half-recollected memories of an account of that presentation.
Watkins believed that in ancient times, when Britain had been far more densely forested, the country had been crisscrossed by a network of straight-line travel routes, with prominent features of the landscape being used as navigation points. This observation was made public at a meeting of the Woolhope Club of Hereford in September 1921. His work referred back to G. H. Piper's paper presented to the Woolhope Club in 1882 which noted that
"A line drawn from the Skirrid-fawr mountain northwards to Arthur's Stone would pass over the camp and southern most point of Hatterill Hill, Oldcastle, Longtown Castle, and Urishay and Snodhill castles." The ancient surveyors who supposedly made the lines were given the name "dodmen".
Watkins published his ideas in the books Early British Trackways and The Old Straight Track. Nevertheless, they were generally received with skepticism in the archaeological community. The archaeologist O. G. S. Crawford refused to accept advertisements for the latter book in the journal Antiquity, and most archaeologists since then have continued to be unaccepting of Watkins' ideas.
In 2004, John Bruno Hare wrote, "Watkins never attributed any supernatural significance to leys; he believed that they were simply pathways that had been used for trade or ceremonial purposes, very ancient in origin, possibly dating back to the Neolithic, certainly pre-Roman. His obsession with leys was a natural outgrowth of his interest in landscape photography and love of the British countryside. He was an intensely rational person with an active intellect, and I think he would be a bit disappointed with some of the fringe aspects of ley lines today."
Despite the largely negative reception to his ideas, some experts have made observations similar to Watkins': Megalithic researcher Alexander Thom offered a detailed analysis of megalithic alignments, proposing a standardization of measure by those who built megaliths.
However, Thom avoided using the term "ley line" in his discussion of megaliths. The discovery by Europeans of the Nazca lines, man-made lines on desert pavement in southern Peru, prompted study of their astronomical alignments.
