The result of the debate was delete. – Sceptre (Talk) 16:12, 9 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Tagged for Prod but contested by one of the many incarnations of James Q. Jacobs, who seems intent on using this article as a vehicle for personal aggrandisement. Term is clearly very minor, it may be considered significant I guess but it looks from the linked sources as if this is not a serious field of study. All the sources appear to trace back to a very small number of authors. Just zis Guy you know? 11:39, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
My view is that for the moment there should be a short article simply listing the alternative definitions of the field (of which I am aware of two), linking to various works. Editors should then, in the fullness of time, create a lovely article that accurately summarises the scope and history of the field. Far from being invented by either Jacobs or the AgA, it dates back for more than a century. Big names for example are William Black, Alfred Watkins, and Guy Underwood. (Alexander Thom is mentioned in the article on 'ley lines' but, as far as I am aware, he confined his studies, where alignments were concerned, to much shorter ones than are studied in archaeogeodesy. Archaeogeodesy overlaps with, but is certainly not coterminous with, the study of leylines).
It is unfair to say that archaeogeodesy is not a serious field of study. This suggests it is merely the realm of hoaxers or people who seek to amuse themselves, which isn't true. I quite agree that the field attracts crackpots. In fact I think Mr Jacobs is a crackpot, but that's just my POV, and is no reason for deletion of an article on the field. In fact, it's no reason even to exclude mention of Jacobs's work. Other fields that attract crackpots include religion, evolutionary biology, psychology, etc.
If it was all a hoax, I think the proposal would be on stronger ground. But I don't think the idea can be seriously maintained by anyone who has read e.g. the 'Great Conjunction' pamphlet, or who has attended AgA lectures.
It is true that the field is fairly obscure and the term has been used only by a small number of authors...but this too is no good reason for deletion IMO.
AIUI, the term archaeoastronomy is fairly new - dating back maybe to the 1960s. It's a good name for a certain field of study which dates back much longer. If Wikipedia had existed in say 1975, when the term had been going for only about 15 years, and let's say it wasn't in very widespread use at that time, would there have been good reason to delete an article on it? I don't think so.
Let's just have a short NPOV article for the time being...and if anyone tries to 'own' it, take what measures are necessary to prevent that from happening.
--158-152-12-77 22:43, 2 April 2006 (BST)
158-152-12-77 17:12, 3 April 2006 (BST)
Several issues of the LPA's newsletter are online. I can't see the relevance of whether Matthew Watkins's interests are traditional or non-traditional. He currently only holds a lowly post at the university of Exeter, but he has done noteworthy work in physics (e.g. study of retro-PK using the internet) and published a number of academic papers, and at least one book (possibly more). Did you see the references to AgA work in the other sources I referred to, on the other deletion-debate page? The AgA has been referred to in Neoist publications (e.g.here)and philosophical publications (e.g.here).
The way to contact the AgA (other than using personal connections) is to go through the publisher. The pamphlet was not published jointly by the AgA and the LPA. It was authored by them. The publisher was Unpopular Books, which has published books in a number of different fields, including politics.
It's not merely 'possible' that the field of archaeogeodesy (or whatever we want to call it - i.e. long-distance alignments of ancient sites) is old. It's a fact. I have listed the names of three big authors above.
158-152-12-77 18:50, 3 April 2006 (BST)
Sorry - I missed your question about Alfred Watkins. No, he didn't differentiate terminologically, but he did study alignments of different lengths. Bear in mind that the 'geodesy' part of 'archaeogeodesy' is basically about making measurements on the earth's surface, and conceiving of the shape of that surface, taking into account its curvature (using a spherical model, and in some contexts, a spheroidal model). See in particular what geodesists call the 'principal' and 'inverse' geodetic problems, referred to in the geodesy article. (This terminology is standard). People making alignments over long distances have got to have some sort of appreciation of these problems. Which begs the question, of course, as to whether anyone made such alignments in ancient times. I'm not sure how much you know about the field, but some of the work by Alexander Thom (a professor of engineering) on archaeoastronomy appeared first in a statistics journal, and a fair amount of the AgA's work is also statistical.
If you put a 1m-wide stone half a mile from another, it makes very little appreciable difference whether you take into account the curvature of the earth or not. If you do it over a distance of 500 miles, it does make a difference. At any rate, when you're talking short-distance sight-lines, there isn't the data to support an opinion as to whether or nor the curvature of the earth was taken into account. The distances are too short. So that's one of the reasons why long-distance alignments are seen as a separate field, or sub-field, or whatever you want to call it. None of what I've just said is controversial. Whether such alignments exist, of course, is.
I should also mention that many leyhunters don't think there's any case for believing that long-distance alignments exist. E.g. Paul Devereux and the 'Ley Hunter' magazine crew. They think the idea is kooky. It conflicts with their 'paradigms'. But they still accept the distinction. I haven't come across any author who doesn't.
Oh, and the lines have got to be straight. Various authors talk of wiggly lines, 'dragon' lines, lines tracing pictures, and so on. Questions concerning these, or their existence or otherwise, are not included in the subject-matter of archaeogeodesy, for the simple reason that geodesy isn't involved.
I don't know what you would suggest as the comon current terminology to take the place of archaeogeodesy. I'm afraid leylines is a very loaded term, and is insufficiently specific.
158-152-12-77 19:23, 3 April 2006 (BST)
DELETE. James Q. Jacobs here. Get rid of the slander against me. Someone is unwilling to have any history of archaeogeodesy posted on this page, and continually vandalizes the content. I would prefer to have the page deleted because of the conduct of the person who will not allow any history of this research to be posted, and uses the page to slander me.
Archaeo- is a combining form meaning ancient. Therefore, archaeogeodesy means "ancient geodesy." Geodesy is a known science and not available for redefinition by ley hunters or followers of some unscientific and much criticized author. Geodesy is science, a very large science encompassing surveying and cartography, and hundreds of thousands of professionals worldwide. Ancient geodesy encompassed all geodesy in prehistory; all navigation, surveying, measure and representation of the earth, and map making.
Archaeogeodesy is the specialized area of scientific study I defined. I have worked on this research for 20 years. I am an anthropologist and archaeologist, and an academic instructor. I attained 4.0 GPAs in undergraduate study at two institutions and graduated summa cum laude. I have taught college anthropology, archaeology, education, mathematics, and computer information systems. But, call me whatever you wish. I was one of the first people creating Wikipedia, when it was worth the effort. Now it has devolved into this sort of banality! I can't even fix typos or capitalizations any longer w/o someone reverting to the previous errors. Why bother.
Archaeogeodesy has nothing to do with occultism, the ley line concept, or other new age ideation. From the discussion above, it is obvious that geodesy is being confused with new-age pseudoscience. If someone used the word "archaeogeodetic" once in 1992, fine--Let them write a book about it if they wish. But printing the word once does not justify erasing a history of serious scientific study. Nonetheless, at this point I vote DELETE the slander.
158-152-12-77 02:13, 7 April 2006 (BST)
Latest version
Rather than concentrating exclusively on delete/don't-delete, I'd encourage anyone interested in improving the article, to try to do so, with the aim of getting it as good as we can while the discussion is going on. I've just added a hopefully non-controversial first bit and an explanation of what is relevant about geodesy. 158-152-12-77 02:17, 7 April 2006 (BST)