Gerald Hawkins

Gerald Hawkins
Born	Gerald Stanley Hawkins 20 April 1928 Great Yarmouth, England
Died	26 May 2003
Occupation	Astronomer
Employer	Boston University
Known for	Stonehenge Decoded
Title	Professor

Gerald Stanley Hawkins (20 April 1928– 26 May 2003) was a British-born American astronomer and author noted for his work in the field of archaeoastronomy. A professor and chair of the astronomy department at Boston University in the United States, in 1965 he published an analysis of Stonehenge in which he was the first to propose its purpose as an ancient astronomical observatory used to predict movements of sun and stars. Archaeologists and other scholars have since demonstrated such sophisticated, complex planning and construction at other prehistoric earthwork sites, such as Cahokia in the United States.

Gerald Hawkins was born in Great Yarmouth, England and studied physics and mathematics at the University of Nottingham. In 1952 he took a PhD in radio astronomy, studying under Sir Bernard Lovell at the University of Manchester.

In 1957 Hawkins became professor of astronomy and chairman of the department at Boston University in the United States. He wrote widely on numerous subjects, including tektites, meteors and the steady-state universe theory. Born in England, he became an American citizen in 1965.

Hawkins applied the technological resources of the university to studying the astronomical alignments of ancient megalithic sites. He fed the positions of standing stones and other features at Stonehenge into an early IBM 7090 computer and used the mainframe to model sun and moon movements. In his 1965 book, Stonehenge Decoded, Hawkins argued that the various features at the monument were arranged in such a way as to predict a variety of astronomical events. This idea was briefly mentioned in his 1961 book, Splendor in the Sky (p23).

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