Alexander Thom (26 March 1894 – 7 November 1985) was a Scottish engineer most famous for his theory of the
Megalithic yard, categorisation of
stone circles and his studies of
Stonehenge and other archaeological sites.
Life and work
Early life and education
Thom was born in
Carradale in 1894 to Archibald Thom, a
tenant farmer
A tenant farmer is a person (farmer or farmworker) who resides on land owned by a landlord. Tenant farming is an agricultural production system in which landowners contribute their land and often a measure of operating capital and management, ...
at ''Mains farm'' for Carradale House, and his wife Lily Stevenson Strang from the family of
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson (born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson; 13 November 1850 – 3 December 1894) was a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer. He is best known for works such as ''Treasure Island'', ''Strange Case of Dr Jekyll a ...
. Her mother (Thom's grandmother) belonged to a large family from
Symington, upon whom had been bestowed the land by
Robert the Bruce
Robert I (11 July 1274 – 7 June 1329), popularly known as Robert the Bruce (Scottish Gaelic: ''Raibeart an Bruis''), was King of Scots from 1306 to his death in 1329. One of the most renowned warriors of his generation, Robert eventual ...
. His father trained the Church
choir
A choir ( ; also known as a chorale or chorus) is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which sp ...
while his mother was pianist.
Thom spent his early years at Mains farm until moving to ''The Hill'' farm at
Dunlop, Ayrshire. Instilled with a good
work ethic
Work ethic is a belief that work and diligence have a moral benefit and an inherent ability, virtue or value to strengthen character and individual abilities. It is a set of values centered on importance of work and manifested by determination o ...
by his father, Thom taught himself
industrial engineering
Industrial engineering is an engineering profession that is concerned with the optimization of complex processes, systems, or organizations by developing, improving and implementing integrated systems of people, money, knowledge, information a ...
and entered college in
Glasgow
Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...
in 1911 where he studied alongside
John Logie Baird
John Logie Baird FRSE (; 13 August 188814 June 1946) was a Scottish inventor, electrical engineer, and innovator who demonstrated the world's first live working television system on 26 January 1926. He went on to invent the first publicly dem ...
. In 1912 he attended summer school at
Loch Eck
Loch Eck (Gaelic: ''Loch Eich'') is a freshwater loch located on the Cowal peninsula, north of Dunoon, Argyll and Bute, Scotland. It is long. Along with Loch Lomond
Loch Lomond (; gd, Loch Laomainn - 'Lake of the Elms'Richens, R. J. (198 ...
where he was trained in surveying and field
astronomy
Astronomy () is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, nebulae, g ...
by Dr David Clark and Professor Moncur. In 1913, aged just 19, he assisted in surveying the Canadian Pacific Rail Network.
Thom graduated from the
Royal College of Science and Technology
The Royal College of Science and Technology was a higher education college that existed in Glasgow, Scotland between 1887 and 1964, and is the predecessor institution of the University of Strathclyde. Its main building on George Street now serve ...
and the
University of Glasgow
, image = UofG Coat of Arms.png
, image_size = 150px
, caption = Coat of arms
Flag
, latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis
, motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita
, ...
in 1914, earning a BSc with special distinction in Engineering.
Early academic career
He suffered from a
heart murmur
Heart murmurs are unique heart sounds produced when blood flows across a heart valve or blood vessel. This occurs when turbulent blood flow creates a sound loud enough to hear with a stethoscope. Turbulent blood flow is not smooth. The sound di ...
and was not
drafted during the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
. Instead he went to work in civil engineering of the
Forth Bridge
The Forth Bridge is a cantilever railway bridge across the Firth of Forth in the east of Scotland, west of central Edinburgh. Completed in 1890, it is considered a symbol of Scotland (having been voted Scotland's greatest man-made wonder in ...
and later designed
flying boats
A flying boat is a type of fixed-winged seaplane with a hull, allowing it to land on water. It differs from a floatplane in that a flying boat's fuselage is purpose-designed for floatation and contains a hull, while floatplanes rely on fusela ...
for the Gosport Aircraft Company. In 1917 he married Jeanie Kirkwood with whom he shared a long and lively marriage.
He returned to the University of Glasgow and worked as a lecturer from 1922 to 1939, quickly earning his PhD and
DSc DSC may refer to:
Academia
* Doctor of Science (D.Sc.)
* District Selection Committee, an entrance exam in India
* Doctor of Surgical Chiropody, superseded in the 1960s by Doctor of Podiatric Medicine
Educational institutions
* Dalton State Col ...
degrees. He built his own home called ''Thalassa'' in 1922, along with a
windmill
A windmill is a structure that converts wind power into rotational energy using vanes called sails or blades, specifically to mill grain (gristmills), but the term is also extended to windpumps, wind turbines, and other applications, in some ...
to power it with electricity. His father died in 1924 and he took over running the farm where he fathered three children, Archibald, Beryl and Alan. Thom helped to develop the Department of
Aeronautics at the University of Glasgow and lectured on statistics, practical field surveying,
theodolite
A theodolite () is a precision optical instrument for measuring angles between designated visible points in the horizontal and vertical planes. The traditional use has been for land surveying, but it is also used extensively for building an ...
design and
astronomy
Astronomy () is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, nebulae, g ...
. From 1930 to 1935 he was a
Carnegie Teaching Fellow.
During the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
, Thom moved to
Fleet
Fleet may refer to:
Vehicles
*Fishing fleet
*Naval fleet
*Fleet vehicles, a pool of motor vehicles
*Fleet Aircraft, the aircraft manufacturing company
Places
Canada
* Fleet, Alberta, Canada, a hamlet
England
* The Fleet Lagoon, at Chesil Beach ...
in Hampshire where he was appointed Principal Scientific Officer heading the
Royal Aircraft Establishment team that developed the first high speed
wind tunnel
Wind tunnels are large tubes with air blowing through them which are used to replicate the interaction between air and an object flying through the air or moving along the ground. Researchers use wind tunnels to learn more about how an aircraft ...
.
Ancient engineering and the Megalithic yard
Later, he was professor and chair of engineering science at
Brasenose College
Brasenose College (BNC) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It began as Brasenose Hall in the 13th century, before being founded as a college in 1509. The library and chapel were added in the m ...
,
University of Oxford
, mottoeng = The Lord is my light
, established =
, endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019)
, budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20)
, chancellor ...
where he became interested in the methods that
prehistoric peoples used to build
megalithic monument
A megalith is a large stone that has been used to construct a prehistoric structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. There are over 35,000 in Europe alone, located widely from Sweden to the Mediterranean sea.
The ...
s. Thom became especially interested in the
stone circles of the
British Isles
The British Isles are a group of islands in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner and Outer Hebrides, the Northern Isles, ...
and France and their astronomical associations.
Thom (1955) in which he first suggested the
megalithic yard as a standardised prehistoric measurement. He retired from academia in 1961 to spend the rest of his life devoted to this area of research. The
Thom Building
The surname Thom is of Scottish origin, from the city of Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire and Angus, and is a sept of the Clan MacThomas.
Thom is also a first name variant of the abbreviation " Tom" of " Thomas" that holds the "h".
People with the su ...
, housing the
Department of Engineering Science at Oxford, built in the 1960s, is named after Alexander Thom.
From around 1933 to 1977 Thom spent most of his weekends and holiday periods hefting theodolites and survey equipment around the countryside with his family member or friends, most notably with his son Archie. From studies measuring and analysing the data created at over five hundred
megalithic sites, he attempted to classify stone circles into different
morphological types, Type A, Type B, Type B modified, and Type D flattened circles, Type 1 and Type 2
egg
An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the a ...
s,
oval
An oval () is a closed curve in a plane which resembles the outline of an egg. The term is not very specific, but in some areas (projective geometry, technical drawing, etc.) it is given a more precise definition, which may include either one ...
s and true
circles
A circle is a shape consisting of all points in a plane that are at a given distance from a given point, the centre. Equivalently, it is the curve traced out by a point that moves in a plane so that its distance from a given point is const ...
.
His son Alan died in a
plane crash
An aviation accident is defined by the Convention on International Civil Aviation Annex 13 as an occurrence associated with the operation of an aircraft, which takes place from the time any person boards the aircraft with the ''intention of fl ...
in 1945.
Archaeoastronomical speculations
He suggested several were built as
astronomical complex An astronomical complex or commemorative astronomical complex is a series of man-made structures with an astronomical purpose. It has been used when referring to a group of Megalithic structures that it is claimed show high precision astronomical a ...
es to predict
eclipses via nineteen-year cycles. Thom went on to identify numerous solar and stellar alignments at stone circles, providing the foundations for the scientific discipline of
archaeoastronomy
Archaeoastronomy (also spelled archeoastronomy) is the interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary study of how people in the past "have understood the phenomena in the sky, how they used these phenomena and what role the sky played in their cul ...
.
He further suggested the prehistoric peoples of Britain must have used a solar method of keeping calendar. Based on statistical
histograms of observed
declinations at horizon marks with no convenient star at −22°, +8°, +9° and +22° (except possibly
Spica
Spica is the brightest object in the constellation of Virgo and one of the 20 brightest stars in the night sky. It has the Bayer designation α Virginis, which is Latinised to Alpha Virginis and abbreviated Alpha Vir or α Vir. Analys ...
at +9°) between 2100 and 1600 BCE, he suggested a year based on sixteen months; four with twenty two days, eleven with twenty three days, and one with twenty four.
Thom's suggested megalithic solar year was divided by
midsummer
Midsummer is a celebration of the season of summer usually held at a date around the summer solstice. It has pagan pre-Christian roots in Europe.
The undivided Christian Church designated June 24 as the feast day of the early Christian martyr ...
,
midwinter
Midwinter is the middle of the winter. The term is attested in the early Germanic calendars.
Attestations
Midwinter is attested in the early Germanic calendars, where it appears to have been a specific day or a number of days during the winter ha ...
, and the two
equinox
A solar equinox is a moment in time when the Sun crosses the Earth's equator, which is to say, appears directly above the equator, rather than north or south of the equator. On the day of the equinox, the Sun appears to rise "due east" and se ...
es into four and then subdivided into eight by early versions of the modern Christian festivals of
Whitsun
Whitsun (also Whitsunday or Whit Sunday) is the name used in Britain, and other countries among Anglicans and Methodists, for the Christian High Holy Day of Pentecost. It is the seventh Sunday after Easter, which commemorates the descent of the ...
,
Lammas
Lammas Day (Anglo-Saxon ''hlaf-mas'', "loaf-mass"), also known as Loaf Mass Day, is a Christian holiday celebrated in some English-speaking countries in the Northern Hemisphere on 1 August. The name originates from the word "loaf" in reference ...
,
Martinmas
Saint Martin's Day or Martinmas, sometimes historically called Old Halloween or Old Hallowmas Eve, is the feast day of Saint Martin of Tours and is celebrated in the liturgical year on 11 November. In the Middle Ages and early modern period, ...
, and
Candlemas (see
Scottish Quarter Days Scottish term and quarter days mark the four divisions (terms and quarters) of the legal year in Scotland. These were historically used as the days when contracts and leases would begin and end, servants would be hired or dismissed, and rent, inte ...
). He found little evidence for further subdivision into thirty two, but noted "We do not know how sophisticated prehistoric man's calendar was, but the interesting thing is that he obtained declinations very close to those we have obtained as ideal".
Thom explored these topics further in his later books
* ''Megalithic Sites in Britain'' (
Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
, 1967)
* ''Megalithic Lunar Observatories'' (
Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
, 1971)
* ''Megalithic Remains in Britain and Brittany'' (
Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
, 1978)
The last was written with his son Archie, after they carried out a detailed survey of the
Carnac stones from 1970–1974.
Thom's ideas met with resistance from the
archaeological community but were welcomed amongst elements of 1960s
counter-culture
A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Hou ...
. Along with
Gerald Hawkins
Gerald Stanley Hawkins (20 April 1928– 26 May 2003) was a British-born American astronomer and author noted for his work in the field of archaeoastronomy. A professor and chair of the astronomy department at Boston University in the Uni ...
' new interpretation of
Stonehenge as an
astronomical
Astronomy () is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, nebulae, galaxi ...
'computer' (see
Archaeoastronomy and Stonehenge
The prehistoric monument of Stonehenge has long been studied for its possible connections with ancient astronomy. The site is aligned in the direction of the sunrise of the summer solstice and the sunset of the winter solstice. archaeoastronomy, ...
), Thom's theories were adopted by numerous enthusiasts for 'the lost wisdom of the ancients' and became commonly associated with
pseudoscience
Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or unfalsifiable clai ...
.
Later life
In 1975, his wife, Jeanie died. In 1981 he underwent an eye operation and in 1982 he broke a
femur
The femur (; ), or thigh bone, is the proximal bone of the hindlimb in tetrapod vertebrates. The head of the femur articulates with the acetabulum in the pelvic bone forming the hip joint, while the distal part of the femur articulates wit ...
falling on
ice
Ice is water frozen into a solid state, typically forming at or below temperatures of 0 degrees Celsius or Depending on the presence of impurities such as particles of soil or bubbles of air, it can appear transparent or a more or less opaqu ...
. He continued to write papers and undertook interviews and correspondence using a dictaphone with the assistance of audio typist, Hilda Gustin. He moved in with his daughter Beryl in 1983 in
Banavie
Banavie (; gd, Banbhaidh) is a small settlement near Fort William in the Highland Council Area of Scotland. One of the closest villages to Ben Nevis, it is about northeast of Fort William town centre, next to Caol and Corpach.
It has been su ...
. Registered as
blind, he concluded a final book ''Stone Rows and Standing Stones'', a 557 page tome published posthumously with the assistance of
Aubrey Burl
Harry Aubrey Woodruff Burl HonFSA Scot (24 September 1926 – 8 April 2020) was a British archaeologist best known for his studies into megalithic monuments and the nature of prehistoric rituals associated with them. Before retirement he was P ...
in 1990. Thom died on 7 November 1985 at
Fort William hospital, aged 91. His body was buried near
Ayr
Ayr (; sco, Ayr; gd, Inbhir Àir, "Mouth of the River Ayr") is a town situated on the southwest coast of Scotland. It is the administrative centre of the South Ayrshire Subdivisions of Scotland, council area and the historic Shires of Scotlan ...
.
Alexander Thom is survived by his daughter Beryl Austin, and his grandchildren.
His son Archie survived him, but died ten years later, in 1995, from a brain tumour.
BBC Chronicle – Cracking the Stone Age code
In 1970, Thom appeared on a television documentary produced by the BBC ''
Chronicle'' series, presented by
Magnus Magnusson
Magnus Magnusson, (born Magnús Sigursteinsson; 12 October 1929 – 7 January 2007) was an Icelandic-born British-based journalist, translator, writer and television presenter. Born in Reykjavík, he lived in Scotland for almost all his life, a ...
and featuring well-known archaeologists Dr
Euan Mackie, Professor
Richard J. C. Atkinson, Dr
A. H. A. Hogg
Alexander Hubert Arthur Hogg (1908–1989) was a British archaeologist best known for his work on hillforts. His gazetteer ''British Hill Forts: an index'' was published in 1979.
Education
Hogg was educated at Highgate School in London and Si ...
, Professor
Stuart Piggott
Stuart Ernest Piggott, (28 May 1910 – 23 September 1996) was a British archaeologist, best known for his work on prehistoric Wessex.
Early life
Piggott was born in Petersfield, Hampshire, the son of G. H. O. Piggott, and was educated t ...
, Dr
Jacquetta Hawkes Jacquetta is a feminine given name which may refer to:
* Jacquetta of Luxembourg (1415/16–1472), Duchess of Bedford, Countess Rivers
* Jacquetta Hawkes (1910–1996), English archaeologist and writer
* Jacquetta May, British writer, actress and ...
, Dr Humphrey Case and Dr
Glyn Daniel
Glyn Edmund Daniel FBA, FRAI (23 April 1914 – 13 December 1986) was a Welsh scientist and archaeologist who taught at Cambridge University, where he specialised in the European Neolithic period. He was appointed Disney Professor of Archa ...
. The programme discussed the difference between
orthodox
Orthodox, Orthodoxy, or Orthodoxism may refer to:
Religion
* Orthodoxy, adherence to accepted norms, more specifically adherence to creeds, especially within Christianity and Judaism, but also less commonly in non-Abrahamic religions like Neo-pa ...
archaeology and the radical ideas of Thom. A pinnacle of his career, Thom finally got to publicly deliver his message on national television.
Despite the heavy criticism, he never vented his frustration on the archaeological profession; as he said in the ''Chronicle'' programme, "I just keep reporting what I find."
Later use of his work
Thom's proposed length for the
Megalithic yard has been reused as such in several controversial books that claim this unit of measurement is a subdivision of the Earth's
circumference
In geometry, the circumference (from Latin ''circumferens'', meaning "carrying around") is the perimeter of a circle or ellipse. That is, the circumference would be the arc length of the circle, as if it were opened up and straightened out t ...
in an alleged
366-degree geometry. One such book is 'Civilization One: The World is Not as You Thought It Was', by
Christopher Knight and Alan Butler who propose the
366 geometry theory.
Clive Ruggles has said that both classical and Bayesian statistical reassessments of Thom's data "reached the conclusion that the evidence in favour of the MY was at best marginal, and that even if it does exist the uncertainty in our knowledge of its value is of the order of centimetres, far greater than the 1mm precision claimed by Thom. In other words, the evidence presented by Thom could be
adequately explained by, say, monuments being set out by pacing, with the 'unit' reflecting an average length of pace."
David George Kendall
David George Kendall FRS (15 January 1918 – 23 October 2007) was an English statistician and mathematician, known for his work on probability, statistical shape analysis, ley lines and queueing theory. He spent most of his academic li ...
had previously argued that pacing would have created a greater difference in measurements between sites, he concluded after investigation for the
Royal Academy, that ''"The hypothesis of a smooth, non-quantal distribution of circle diameters'' (for Scottish, English and Welsh true circles) ''is thus rejected at the 1% level."''
Douglas Heggie casts doubt on Thom's suggestion as well, stating that his careful analysis uncovered "little evidence for a highly accurate unit" and "little justification for the claim that a highly accurate unit was in use".
Euan MacKie, recognising that Thom's theories needed to be tested, excavated at the Kintraw standing stone site in Argyllshire in 1970 and 1971 to check whether the latter's prediction of an observation platform on the hill slope above the stone was correct. There was an artificial platform there and this apparent verification of Thom's long alignment hypothesis (Kintraw was diagnosed as an accurate winter solstice site) led him to check Thom's geometrical theories at the Cultoon stone circle in Islay, also with a positive result. MacKie therefore broadly accepted Thom's conclusions and published new prehistories of Britain.
2In contrast a re-evaluation of Thom's fieldwork by Clive Ruggles argued that Thom's claims of high accuracy astronomy were not fully supported by the evidence.
3Nevertheless, Thom's legacy remains strong, Krupp wrote in 1979, "Almost singlehandedly he has established the standards for archaeoastronomical fieldwork and interpretation, and his amazing results have stirred controversy during the last three decades." His influence endures and practice of statistical testing of data remains one of the methods of archaeoastronomy.
In his book ''Genes, Giants, Monsters and Men,''
Joseph P. Farrell states, "If Thom was right, the development of human civilization may have to be rewritten!" This Farrell surmises is why Thom encounters such opposition from certain groups.
In his book ''Rings of Stone: The Prehistoric Stone Circles of Britain and Ireland.''
Aubrey Burl
Harry Aubrey Woodruff Burl HonFSA Scot (24 September 1926 – 8 April 2020) was a British archaeologist best known for his studies into megalithic monuments and the nature of prehistoric rituals associated with them. Before retirement he was P ...
calls the megalithic yard "a chimera, a grotesque statistical misconception."
See also
*
Archeoastronomy
Archaeoastronomy (also spelled archeoastronomy) is the interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary study of how people in the past "have understood the phenomena in the sky, how they used these phenomena and what role the sky played in their cultu ...
*
Euan MacKie
*
Anne Macaulay
Publications
Archaeoastronomical publications.
*
*
*
*
*
*
* Thom, Alexander., Megalithic sites in Britain, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1967 .
*
* Thom, Alexander., Megalithic Lunar Observatories, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1970.
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
* Thom, Alexander., Megalithic remains in Britain and Brittany, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1978.
*
*
*
* Thom, Alexander, Thom Archibald Stevenson, Burl, Aubrey., ''Megalithic rings: plans and data for 229 monuments in Britain'', British Archaeological Reports, 1980,
* Thom, Alexander, Statistical and philosophical arguments for the astronomical significance of standing stones, in D.C. Heggie, Archaeoastronomy in the Old World, Cambridge University Press, 53–82, 1982.
* Thom, Alexander, Statistical and philosophical arguments for the astronomical significance of standing stones with a section on the solar calendar, in D.C. Heggie, Archaeoastronomy in the Old World, Cambridge University Press, 53–82, 1982.
*
*
* 1990. Thom, Alexander and Burl, Aubrey ''Stone Rows and Standing Stones: Britain, Ireland and Brittany'' B.A.R. 1990,
References
External links
Thom's publicationsat the
Astrophysics Data System
The SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS) is an online database of over 16 million astronomy and physics papers from both peer reviewed and non-peer reviewed sources. Abstracts are available free online for almost all articles, and full scanned ...
Biography"Astronomy before History" by
Clive Ruggles and Michael Hoskins, a chapter from the ''Cambridge Concise History of Astronomy'', Michael Hoskin ed., 1999
Alexander Thom, obituaryby D. C. Heggie, ''
Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society
''Astronomy & Geophysics'' (''A&G'') is a scientific journal and trade magazine published on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) by Oxford University Press. It publishes a mixture of content of interest to astronomers and geophysicists ...
'', Vol 28, No 2, p 178-182
BBC Archive – Chronicle , Cracking the Stone Age CodeVideo footage of his home at Dunlop in Ayrshire
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thom, Alexander
1894 births
1985 deaths
Scottish archaeologists
20th-century Scottish engineers
Scottish scholars and academics
Alumni of the University of Glasgow
Academics of the University of Glasgow
Academics of the University of Oxford
Engineering academics
Archaeoastronomers
Alumni of the University of Strathclyde