And even more: the article might make one believe that the statute mile is being used in Central Europe to measure distances. Like British teenagers in a Eurolines long distance bus or coach from London to Amsterdam that approached the Belgian/Dutch border a few years ago. A distance sign on the motorway northbound from Antwerp stated 'Breda 40' and these British youths, who have learnt metric at school but then had it erased from their minds, because of the largely non-metric environment they live in and partly because of the anti-metric trash they read in newspapers like The Sun, thought that this distance was 40 miles!
The miles used in Central Europe about 200 years ago were much longer than the British mile - between 5 and 7 km. These mainland European archeologists have certainly referred to ramparts and palisades stretching up for 800 m and they will have talked about a 650 km swath of land.
Han
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Message date : 11-06-2005 14:45
From : "Daniel" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To : "U.S. Metric Association"
Copy to :
Subject : [USMA:33172] Re: Independent (UK) all metric
In all, more than 150 temples have been identified. Constructed of earth and wood, they had ramparts and palisades that stretched for up to half a mile. They were built by a religious people who lived in communal longhouses up to 50 metres long, grouped around substantial villages.Archaeologists are now beginning to suspect that hundreds of these very early monumental religious centres, each up to 150 metres across, were constructed across a 400-mile swath of land in what is now Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and eastern Germany.
Second, the central sacred area was nearly always the same size, about a third of a hectare.
One village complex and temple at Aythra, near Leipzig, covers an area of 25 hectares.
Maybe my math is faulty, but the above excerpts showing both metric and English in the article doesn't seem to add up to 100 %. I would think miles are still used because they are still used on British roads. The use of metres and hectares most likely are used because they are used in the UK instead of their former units. This may be what the mess is all about; mixing English and metric units together like this.
Dan
----- Original Message -----From: Ezra SteinbergSent: Saturday, 2005-06-11 03:35Subject: [USMA:33171] Independent (UK) all metricHere's an interesting story in its own right about a new discovery of ancient civilization in Europe, but it also demonstrates The Independent's apparently 100% metric editorial policy:Would that Tesco see things the same way ...
