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Books in the genre of archaeology are rarely an easy read, their very nature requires concentration and often prior background knowledge of the particular subject. Heavens Mirror then is the answer to this, an easy to access book on alternative archaeology, with an easy to follow text and sumptuous photographs. The book was designed to go hand in hand with the Channel Four series and as such is presented in a way designed to appeal to the non-academic, a breath of fresh air.

Those familiar with Hancock's previous work will already have an understanding of the nature of this book. Hancock has spent years questioning some of the fundamental ideas of mans past. His general theory, which provides a sort of overview of his work, is that the growth of man from nomadic hunter-gatherer took rather longer than the accepted history books suggest. It is quite a thing to believe that man rocketed from unsophisticated subsistence level tribal groups to the race he is today in no more than 5000 years. Graham Hancock doesn't believe this and here offers ideas to explain a longer time span for development. This then by its very nature means that man was up to a few very spectacular tricks a lot earlier than the current theories suggest.

Once you get your head around his main thrust certain other anomalies fall into place, and his main argument lies with an understanding of precession. Without going into too much depth precession is a given fact relating to the movement of the stars, or more properly their apparent movement in relation to the viewers position, that is, the earth.

The stars above us appear to move position slightly every year when viewed from the earth, due to a wobble in the earth orbit and this is known as precession. Every year this slight movement follows a measurable and predictable route, but is only really noticeable over very long periods of time. Over a period of 25000 years the stars move full circle. Once this idea was noticed by man it was easily recorded by noting where the sun rose on a specific day of the year. Over time the star pattern behind the rising sun would change. This is also the way that we have developed the Zodiac system and its 12 houses. The Age of Aquarius that we are just moving into is defined by the fact that the sun rises in that area of the sky on the vernal equinox, in 2000 years or so it will have moved into a different part of the sky. Once this is understood you then have a framework to place other ideas. Hancock puts forward

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