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This year’s Megalithomania took place over the weekend of 8–9 May in Glastonbury Assembly Rooms. The annual event takes its name from a 1982 book by John Michell, in which he explored the rival interpretations of the megaliths by artists, antiquarians, and archæologists, always rooted in the dominant myth of their day.

Although the myth of modern progress wasn’t in special favour, this year’s Megalithomania was what a vat of ancient Aztec chocolatl drink would be to a chocoholic – it just seems to get better and better. It was also by way of being a collective toast to the memory of Hamish Miller, the master dowser who died in January 2010, the last chapter of whose life was as the initiator of the Parallel Community, a grassroots network of people working for positive change.

At the “mania” end of the megalith­omania spectrum was Michael Tellinger, a speaker from South Africa who innoc­ently started to investigate his local so-called “cattle kraal” and eventually found more than a million examples covering much of the country. These prehistoric circular stone structures show no signs of having had doors or windows. Their remains lie in clusters that appear to have grown organically, but whose parts inter-relate geometrically. Tellinger gave evidence of ancient gold mines and great bird sculptures associated with these circles – the ghosts of a vanished civilisation inherited by the Egyptians and the Sumerians – in southern Africa, the birthplace of humankind.

Another star was French archæo­logist Antoine Gilgal who opened up a new world of exotica with her talk on unrecognised pyramids on the islands of Mauritius, Sicily, and Tenerife. With her team of scientists, she recently rediscovered seven pyramids on Maur­itius – an unwelcome event for the many inhabitants who prefer their history to begin around the colonial period. The team went on to study forgotten pyramids and structures in Sicily, over 20 of which ring Mount Etna, one of the most dangerous vol­canoes in the world.

Andrew Collins gave a hybrid lecture about Eden and Egypt. Under the Giza plateau, not far from the Sphinx, packs of big camelback spiders, swarms of tiny white widow spiders, and clouds of bats live in one of the spookiest caves on Earth, which Andrew and Sue Collins obtained permission to visit several times. At the far end of the cave is another opening, very narrow and apparently bottomless, which they didn’t explore, lacking proper equipment. Collins actually apologised for not having gone in, quite unnecessarily – writers should stop short of killing themselves to get a good story. Now perm­anently sealed, this cave underworld existed long before the pyramids.

Anthony Thorley lectured on landscape zodiacs, on which subject he’s currently working for a doctorate. Forget Kathryn Maltwood’s Glastonbury Zodiac – here we’re talking about roughly 60 differ­ent examples from all over the country. Seemingly in collusion with human consciousness, the Earth – at least here in Britain – produces gig­antic simulacra of zodiac symbols, mostly emblematic animals, in the shapes of its natural and its cultured landscape. Moreover, these symbols appear in the same order as their star signs around the ecliptic.

Robert Bauval spoke on the ancient origins of Egypt, commonly said to have arisen in the Nile Valley, but which he proposes arose much further southwest around places like Napta Playa, a site with astronomically aligned stones and ancient petroglyphs. He explained in detail how isolated this part of Africa is, the difficulties of reaching Napta Playa almost insurmountable until the age of air travel. Nevertheless, a system of water pots placed at strategic relay points enabled the ancients to travel through the desert in stages. Caches have lain in the lost dunes for mill­ennia. As Bauval’s voice rose in volume to emphasise a point about the blazing desert, a huge blackout shade fell off one of the windows in the Assembly Rooms and crashed to the floor, letting in the weak, cold light from Glastonbury High Street. We all wanted to go to Napta Playa.

Veteran Paul Devereux spoke twice on his specialities of sacred geography and archæoacoustics. His sound clips of ringing rocks, sonorous stones and musical pillars were haunting. Devereux edits, with an international team, Time and Mind: The Journal of Archæology, Consciousness, and Culture, a peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary journal, now in its third year, about new vistas in landscape, monuments, people and culture.

Walter Cruttenden spoke on the precession of the equinoxes, Hugh Newman reported on pre-Mayan sites and artefacts in Central America, Gary Biltcliffe presented the Belinus Line, which he calls the spine of Albion and Francine Blake gave us crop circles in terms of the perennial wisdom of the Great Goddess. At the end of the two-day event, Robert Temple, witty and urbane, joined the speaker’s forum, taking questions from the audience. The mood of Megalithomania 2010 was distinctly global, nailing another challenge on the door of the old paradigm.