About MEGALITHICA

What Is MEGALITHICA?

MEGALITHICA is a citizen-science community platform for exploring megalithic and archaeological sites worldwide — combined with a computational engine that detects astronomical alignments between them.

The platform brings together the world's largest database of prehistoric sites with the MEGALITHICA engine, a novel algorithm that exploits the slow change in Earth's axial tilt over millennia to identify — and date — astronomical alignments between pairs of sites. The result is a living map of the ancient world's relationship with the sky.

MEGALITHICA builds on the pioneering work of Sir Norman Lockyer, who in 1894 proved that Egyptian temples and British stone circles were aligned to astronomical events. What Lockyer observed with a compass and theodolite, MEGALITHICA validates computationally at planetary scale — with a statistical significance of 18σ above chance.

A Living Map of the Ancient World

The interactive map is the heart of MEGALITHICA. It displays 960,000+ sites plotted on a dark observatory-themed map, with viewport-based loading that keeps performance smooth even at global scale. Each site is colour-coded by type:

MEGALITHICA supports multiple map tile providers, switchable at any time:

Open the map →

Every Site Has a Story

Every one of the 960,000+ sites has its own detail page, combining scientific data with community contributions:

Each site page includes:

• Photo gallery — database images plus community uploads
• Alignment table — every detected astronomical alignment with Perfect Year, residual, and precision category
• Community discussions — posts, field reports, and threaded comments from visitors
• Nearby sites — other sites within a configurable radius

Use the advanced search to find sites by name, country, or type. The compare tool lets you view two sites side by side with their shared alignment data.

Instruments for Discovery

MEGALITHICA provides eight interactive research tools, each operating as a full-screen workspace with map integration:

Explore Together

MEGALITHICA is built around a community of explorers, photographers, and researchers. Every contribution earns reputation points and helps build the shared knowledge base:

Reputation System

Your profile page shows your journey map (all visited sites plotted on a personal map), badge collection grid, research statistics, and a shareable digital passport summarising your MEGALITHICA activity.

Share Your Discoveries

MEGALITHICA isn't just a database — it's a research platform where discoveries can be published, reviewed, and discussed by the community.

Discovery Posts

Publish your alignment findings, geometry discoveries, and 3D visualisations as structured discovery posts. Each post can include embedded alignment data, interactive maps, and video exports of 3D scenes.

Browse discoveries →

Site Submissions

Found an undocumented site? Submit it for review. Site submissions are gated at the Explorer tier (100+ reputation) to ensure quality contributions.

Verified Voices

Established researchers can create custom-branded profile pages with books, upcoming events, YouTube integration, and a curated portfolio of published discoveries.

Meet the Verified Voices → · Researcher directory →

Video Export

Export 3D alignment and geometry visualisations as MP4 videos — perfect for presentations, social media, or offline sharing.

MEGALITHICA: The Engine Behind the Data

Every alignment in MEGALITHICA is computed by the MEGALITHICA engine, a novel archaeoastronomy engine that exploits the slow change in Earth's axial obliquity over a 41,000-year cycle. The key concepts:

• Perfect Year — the historical epoch when a celestial event's azimuth exactly matched the bearing between two sites
• Mirror Years — because the obliquity curve rises and falls, most alignments have two valid dates (one on each side of the ~7,500 BCE peak)
• Precision categories — from Sub-Arcsecond (< 1″, extraordinary) to Moderate (< 30″, within detection threshold)
• Monte Carlo validation — MEGALITHICA alignments occur 1,200 to 1,500 times more frequently than expected from randomly placed sites (18σ significance)

Choose Your Level

MEGALITHICA offers four tiers, from free exploration to full research publishing: