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PresseDowsing Mysterious Sites I'm not an archaeologist but, as something of a jack of all trades, I have participated in some archaeological investigations and digs, including a forensic one that unearthed hidden skeletal remains and a bullet (Renovation 1981). In short, I know enough to appreciate what a boon psychic power would provide to the field - if such power were actually to exist. Psychic Archaeology Certainly, there are many who believe in "psychic archaeology" - the supposed "application of clairvoyance and other psychic skills to the field of archaeology; especially in the location of dig sites and the identification of artifacts." lt may involve psychometry (in which an object is used to obtain psychic "impressions"), dowsing (divination with a device such as a rod or pendulum to locate hidden things from a site or map), automatic writing (in which spirits of the dead or other sources supposedly guide the hand to produce messages), or some other alleged psychic mode (Guiley 1991). What has been termed "perhaps the first, best-known case of deliberate psychic archaeology" was launthed in 1907 by Frederick Bligh Bond in excavations at England's Glastonbury Abbey. Unknown to the Church of England officials who appointed hirn, Bond was an occultist who turned to a friend's automatic writing for help in locating the ruins of two chapels. Soon "Gulielmus Monachus" ("William the Monk") and other spirits, including "watthers from the other side," were tapping the "Universal Memory" to provide the necessary site information. Bond's excavations were successful, but when he eventually revealed his methods in 1917 the Church was embarrassed and he was forced out, ending the work in 1922 (Guiley 1991). Archaeologist, skeptic, and CSICOP fellow Kenneth L. Feder - in his "Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries" (1996, 198) - points out the problem of possible prior knowledge in such cases. "Bond was an expert on metheval churthes," notes Feder, "and we know that he had access to and had examined many of the documents, maps, plans, and drawings of the abbey before initiating field research." Moreover, "Although much of the abbey was a ruin, some walls and foundations were visible at the surface." The locations of the chapels, supposedly identified for Bond by spirits, were already generally identified in old documents, and previous searthes had gready narrowed the areas to be searthed. Feder observes that Bond simply "searthed for and found the chapels in the only reasonable places left for them to be" (Feder 1996). Scientific tests have not proved the efficacy of psychic archaeology (Feder 1980; 1995). Such tests "either are not conducted or are conducted so poorly as to render the results meaningless" (Feder 1996). Some defenders of dowsing would object to its being categorized with psychic claims, suggesting it may have a natural explanation. Dowsers have often attributed the movement of the tods or pendulums to "earth force fields," which supposedly send out "vibrations" such as electromagnetic or other rathations. Yet many dowsers work from maps, far from the actual locations, and some claim to receive images - including those of the past and future - like clairvoyants (Guiley 1991, 155-156). Dowsers have claimed success in locating hidden objects, even missing persons (Nickell 1994). Unfortunately, dowsers actually fare poorly in properly controlled tests of their abilities, as James Randi (1982; 1991) has repeatedly demonstrated. I once tested some gold dowsers in the Yukon Territory of Canada, site of the famed Klondike gold rush. Alas, they could not differentiate between gold nuggets, fool's gold, chromium nuts and bolts, and empty boxes - although they had rationalizations for their failures (Nickell 1976). The well-established, scientific explanation for the movement of dowsing tods and pendulums is that it is due to "the unwitting translation of thoughts into muscular action," the same force responsible for various phenomena like automatic writing, table tipping, the movement of a Ouija board's planthette, etc. (Gardner 1957, 109). Nevertheless, the claims continue. Here are two examples - one from Australia, the other from Germany - that involve dowsing to supposedly locate or provide information about alleged archaeological sites. The Mahogany Ship Reportedly, a boat carrying three hunting seals capsized off southeastern Australia in 1836, drowning the captain. The two survivors sought safety along this now aptly named "Shipwreck Coast" (where over eigtby shipping disasters occurred between 1836 and 1922). At that site, between present-day Port Fait and Warrnambool, the two spied a wrecked ship, lodged in the hummocks (or sand dunes) (Lindsay 1996, 2). Since then, the legend of the Mahogany Ship has challenged historians and intrigued tourists. There is even an eye-catching "Mahogany Ship Replica" (figure 1) at the McDonald's restaurant in Warrnambool - dubbed the "McReplica" by a waggish Bob Nixon, Australian Skeptics' Chief Investigator. Bob, Richard Cadena (Victoria Skeptics vice-president), and I had motored from Melbourne along the Great Ocean Road in search of a mystery. The enigma is that the wreck was periodically sighted and lost, presumably due to shifting sands, until it finally disappeared, leaving only controversy behind. Worse, it was a perambulating wreck. As Bob Nixon (2001) says: "lt is variously described as close to Port Fairy, mid-way between Port Fairy and Warrnambool, three miles west of Warrnambool. She is said to be high in the hummocks, well above the high tide mark, in the water, between two hummocks, at the end of a gap in the hummocks. She is identified to be in various states of decay, in various orientations, bows pointing west and north. In short there is little agreement among the reports." The chronology of events is illuminating. Just after the 1836 sighting by the two sealers, an expedition was mounted by a Captain John Mills to recover their capsized boat along with the drowned captain's body. However, the searthers failed to sight the reported shipwreck. Mills again searthed in 1843 and did discover a wreck, which he revisited in 1847. There were sightings off and on over subsequent decades, until the wreck was last seen in 1880. lt has since become the subject of persistent legend, as in these closing verses of an unattributed poem, "The Ancient Ship" (Lindsay 1996): "... An ancient ship / we've heard the tales -/ Was forced ashore by southern gales, / Nothing left - no masts or sails, / Just timbers like mahogany. / Will it be discovered soon / That ancient ship beneath a dune? / Only the sun, the stars, the moon / Are witness to this mystery." Some have thought the legendary wreck was Dutch, Spanish, or Portuguese (Loney 1998, 20), possibly even proof of a prior "secret" discovery of Australia by the Portuguese, rather than by Captain Cook (Mclntyre 1977). There have been skeptics, however. In 1896 a local historian expressed doubt as to the existence of the wreck, stating that most older residents regarded it as mere fable. He cited the use of old timbers, saturated with whale oil, that had been used for flooring in a house; they were mistakenly thought to have been salvaged from the Mahogany Ship but had probably come from "an old whaling punt" (Lonev 1998, 17-18). I was fortunate to be able to investigate the Mahogany Ship mystery with Bob Nixon and Richard Cadena. Bob had been in touch with Peter D'Aloisio, the 1988 "Australian Champion" water diviner (dowser) and professional water driller. D'Aloisio had used his divining rods to locate what be believed was a chain and nine-foot anchor, possibly from the fabled wreck itself. He had "found" the alleged relics in December 1992, and from February to June 1993 (when he was hospitalized with an angina attack) he drilled two holes: One turned up bits of metal; he then sank a large-diameter pipe to a depth of some thirty-three feet, but unfortunately the shaft flooded. We met Peter, bis brother Dominic, and two of their friends in Warrnambool and followed them to the location at Levy's Point Coastal Reserve. Peter told me he had been directed to the general site by local landmarks. He had, he said, spent about $150,000 (Australian) in motel bills and exploration costs. He and a diver had gone down to the bottom of the flooded pipe shaft but could not be certain what was there. Since 1993 the pipe has been sealed with a metal cover (D'Aloisio 2000). Peter demonstrated his dowsing technique for us at the site. We took photographs (see figure 2) and later discussed the evidence at the Mahogany Ship Restaurant (where I had a delicious kangaroo steak). Peter showed us some papers related to his project, but the report on tests of the metal traces he had obtained by drilling - provided by Monash University - determined they had probably been from one of Peter's own broken drill bits (D'Aloisio 2000; Nixon 2001a). Not only is the dowsing evidence therefore unsupported, but much other evidence renders unlikely the claim that a Mahogany Ship anchor bas been found. For example, while one possible location for the wreck (shown on a widely published map) is appropriately near the beach, the D'Aloisio site is almost a kilometer inland, a fact difficult to reconcile with a beathed ship. Actually there is evidence that casts doubt on the existence of an ancient Portuguese (or other exploratory caravel's) wreck. As it happens, the "original" 1836 sighting was reported only decades later and there are conflicting, even apparently "doctored" versions of some accounts (McKiggan 1987, 65). Indeed, Hugh Donnelly, who claimed to have been aboard the boat that set out to recover the capsized whale boat and body of the drowned captain in 1836, did not arrive in Australia until five years later (Fawcett n.d.). Richard, Bob, and I - in addition to visiting the D'Aloisio site, taking photos, and looking over his documents - explored the area in and around Tower Hill. Actually a lake-filled ancient volcano crater, it provided a magnificenc view of Armstrong's Bay to the south, the reputed site of the Mahogany Ship. We also did research at the Flagstaff Hill Maritime Museum where we obtained clippings and researthed anchors, learning that one from an ancient Portuguese ship would probably have been much smaller than that described by D'Aloisio. We also interviewed a member of the Mahogany Ship Committee, John Lindsay (2000), who told us that extensive negative results of searching with a magnetometer suggest it is unlikely an anchor would be found in the area. Finally, we visited the local library, staying until closing time and photocopying much material. This included information from a book cited in a Mahogany Ship display at the museum - which turned out to be a novel! Back in Melbourne, Bob Nixon and I visited the state library of Victoria to conduct still further research. We searthed out early newspaper accounts on microfilm, notably one from the "Portland Guarthan" of October 29, 1847, describing a wreck found near Warrnambool. lt was "thrown completely into the hummocks, and buried in the sand," its deck was "completely gone." The account went on to suggest it had been the source of "a number of articles strewed along the beach" in 1841, adding that "from several articles of French manufacture that were then found it was deemed that the vessel had been a French whaler." Bob and I have come to believe that this French whaler was a plausible - I will even say probable - candidate for the Mahogany Ship. Given the differing descriptions and locations, however, it appears that more than one wreck could be involved. In any case, to date there is no evidence that dowsing has added anything other than confusion to the ship-wreck mystery. Celtic Sites During an investigative tour of Germany in the fall of 2002 (Nickell 2003a; 2003b), which included some locales in Franconia (northern Bavaria), I was able to explore three sites associated with the legendary Druids, the Celtic priesthood. The expedition, on a bleak, drizzly Occober 13, was arranged at the request of my excellent German guide, Martin Mahner, Executive Director of the Center for Inquiry - Europe. Accompanying us were several intrepid members of the Bamberg Skeptics Guild and our distinguished leader, geologist Michael Link, from the Paleontological Institute of the University of Erlangen. Michael was conducting the three-site tour in English especially for me, and I am indebted for that and many additional kindnesses from him and others (see Acknowledgments). From Bamberg, our little convoy proceeded some fifty kilometers southeast into the area known to tourists as "Franconian Switherland" for its mountainous terrain, caves, castle ruins, and other scenic features. lt was once inhabited by the Celts, a tribe that extended into central Europe about 1200 B.C. Our first stop took us to a remote wooded hill known as Ringwall. Had we not been with Michael Link, we would have thought it only a scenic place with some natural rock outcroppings. Once shown, however, we could see that, in addition, covered with thick moss and a stand of trees, were distinct earthworks. They had been added to the limestone formations to create what was, indeed, an ancient Celtic fortress - hence the name Ringwall ("circular rampart"). Michael informed us that excavations at the site turned up iron implements and pottery dating to ca. 500 B.C. From Ringwall we proceeded to another isolated site, about 1.5 kilometers further southeast, known as Espershöhle ("höhle" meaning "cavern"). This is a cave of Jurassic limestone from which cold air emanates, giving it the popular name Eishölle (i.e., "Ice Hell"). lt may have had mystical meaning for the Celts. Having been an avid spelunker during my college years, I was Michael Link's apt pupil when he pointed out that the amphitheater-like entranceway resulted from a cave "mom" having collapsed and over time becoming exposed at the surface (see figure 3). A passageway (which is home to hibernating bats from October until April) leads to a fifteen-meter-deep pit. This was excavaced by archaeologists in 1937-1938, and the recovered artifacts identified it as a Celtic site. The presence of skeletal remains - some bones even exhibiting knife marks - seemed to indicate the practice of sacrifice (Link 2002). The last of the three sites we visited on our expedition is known as Druidenhain or "Druid's Grove." The arrangement of giant rocks that litter the wooded area, interspersed with passageways for a labyrinthine effect, have inspired popular belief that it is an ancient Celtic site. Some have called it "The University of the Druids." Supposedly, the Celts subjected the rock to heating and cooling to produce fracturing and thus create the "monoliths," a notion leading to another sobriquet for the place, "The Franconian Stonehenge" (Link 2002). Imaginative names have been given to the formations, such as "Christening Stone," "Bowl Stone," "Entrance to the Underworld," and so on. The belief that the place was one of sacrifice - an idea that dates from 1863 - led to one boulder being styled the "Sacrificial Stone." Dowsers eventually got into the game and in 1983 determined that the "Altar Stone" was at the intersection of two "earth-ray" lines. These are apparently similar to the earth-energy or "ley" lines that are imagined to connect mystical sites; leys represent an idea advanced by English beer salesman Alfred Watkins (1925), an amateur antiquarian. Dowsing is often touted as a method of supposedly detecting such "earth energies" (Guiley 1991, 157). Dowsing was also used in other ways at Druidenhain. For example, dowsers employed their witching wands to determine the supposedly true nature of one of the supposed megaliths. As a consequence, it was bestowed with the fanciful name, "The Grave" (Link 2002). Alas for the evidence from dowsing, and for the belief that the site is Celtic or even manmade, Druidenhain has yielded no potsherds, skeletal remains, or other evidence of human habitation. Moreover, the array of "monoliths" is actually a natural formation - the product of geologic forces and erosion. (During the geologic formation of the mountain, pressure caused the rock to fracture, producing numerous faults crisscrossing each other. These faults were then attacked preferentially by seeping water, with the erosion along the lines eventually resulting in a multitude of rocks aligned in rows [Link 2002].) Conclusions As both the Mahogany Ship and "Druidic Grove" cases demonstrate, dowsing does not seem an effective method of archaeological investigation - whether considered a "psychic" means or not. However, not only is science an ongoing process, but so is popular belief from either perspective, it is important to continue to look at significant new cases and to even work the "cold case" files - not with the view of mystery mongers to promote them, or of self-styled "debunkers" to dismiss them, but as investigators trying to understand and explain them. In so doing we can learn more about ourselves and our world - a reward dogmatists often seem unaware of. Acknowledgments In addition to those mentioned in the text, I am grateful for the assistance
of Barry Williams and lan Bryce (in Australia) and Amardeo Sarma, Christoph
Bördlein, and Detlev Lück (in Germany). Closer to home, Paul
Kurtz, Barry Karr, Tim Binga, and Ranjit Sandhu, along with Benjamin Radford,
Kevin Christopher, and the entire Center for Inquiry support staff, all
deserve thanks for helping in various ways. To John and Mary Frantz, for
their creation of an References
(Quelle: Nickell, Joe: Investigative files. Dowsing Mysterious Sites. In: "Skeptical Inquirer", 05-06/2003) |
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