ABSTRACT

Considering that prehistoric cultures may have had the socio-religious need and technical ability to create accurate geometric patterns across a large landscape, limited ethnographic and archaeologic evidence are reviewed. Simple but accurate land surveying is discussed. Since any set of existing sites at larger scales coincidentally creates accurate three-point alignments and right-angles, the critical research problem attempts to distinguish designed from random geometry. Unpublished patterns involving great kivas in Chaco Canyon and Temple IV at Tikal are tested for probabilities of design. The more expansive third test considers the location of 26 prominent Adena mounds in relation to 32 river confluence points and four highest mountains in a geographic area some 900 × 1200 km, just slightly larger than a Chacoan world. In 14 test boxes modeling the locations of the 26 mounds, 1000 sets of random points replace equal numbers in each box. Each set is searched for numbers of three-point alignments and ninety-degree angles at or under 0.10º accuracy. Chaco and Tikal tests show a strong likelihood of design at these sites; in the Adena, data indicate a high probability that some number of existing patterns were intentionally surveyed.

摘要

考虑到史前文化可能具有在大型景观中创建准确几何图案的社会宗教需求和技术能力，因此审查了有限的人种学和考古学证据。讨论了简单但准确的土地测量。由于任何一组现有站点在更大的范围内巧合地创建了准确的三点对齐和直角，因此关键的研究问题试图区分设计与随机几何。涉及查科峡谷和蒂卡尔神庙 IV 中的大 kivas 的未公开图案进行了设计概率测试。更广泛的第三个测试考虑了与 32 个河流汇合点和四座最高山脉相关的 26 个突出的 Adena 土丘的位置，地理区域约为 900 × 1200 公里，仅略大于查科世界。在对 26 个土墩的位置进行建模的 14 个测试框中，1000 组随机点替换了每个框中的相同数字。每组都搜索精度为 0.10º 或以下的三点对齐和九十度角的数量。Chaco 和 Tikal 测试表明在这些地点进行设计的可能性很大；在 Adena 中，数据表明很有可能一些现有的模式是有意调查的。