Earth mysteries

[1][2] The concept of Earth mysteries can be traced back to two 17th-century antiquarians: John Aubrey and William Stukeley, who both believed that Stonehenge was associated with the druids.

[7] Ley lines were postulated by Alfred Watkins in 1921 at a presentation at the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club, later published in Early British Trackways (1922) and The Old Straight Track (1925).

[10] The New Age boom of the 1980s expanded the scope of the Earth mysteries field beyond the British landscape, and by the 1990s could include the study of ancient sites and landscapes (including archaeology, archaeoastronomy, and ley lines), Chinese geomancy or feng shui, western magical concepts of gematria, and dowsing.

Michell's book The View Over Atlantis mixed ley lines with folklore and archeology; these ideas became popularised as earth mysteries.

[5] The Earth mysteries movement in Great Britain embraced the term "ritual landscapes" that was used in British archaeology starting in the 1980s, with regards to sacred locations apparently used for mainly ceremonial purposes in the Neolithic and the early Bronze Age; the concept has been both adopted and criticized in the field of academic archaeology.