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*Physica Scripta </EJ/journal/PhysScr>* 	


    Evidence for an intense solar outburst in prehistory

A L Peratt /et al/ 2008 /Phys. Scr./ 

A L Peratt
and W F Yao

^1 Applied Physics Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos,
NM 87545, USA

^2 Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA

^3 Albuquerque Public Schools System, State of New Mexico, NM 87105, USA
E-mail: alp@ieeetps.org <mailto:alp@ieeetps.org>

*Abstract.* A past intense solar outburst and its effect on Earth was
proposed by Gold (1962 /Pontificiae Acad. Sci. Scr. Varia/ *25* 159)
who, along with others, based his hypotheses on strong astronomical and
geophysical evidence. The discovery that objects from the Neolithic or
Early Bronze Age carry patterns associated with high-current
/Z/-pinches, as would result from an intense plasma impinging Earth,
provides a possible insight into the origin and meaning of these ancient
symbols produced by humans. Peratt (2003 /Trans. Plasma Sci./ *31* 1192)
dealt with the comparison of graphical and radiation data from
high-current /Z/-pinches to petroglyphs, geoglyphs and megaliths. Peratt
(2007 /Trans. Plasma Sci./ *35* 778) focused primarily, but not
exclusively, on petroglyphs of some 84 different morphologies; pictures
found in laboratory experiments and carved on rock. These corresponded
to mankind's visual observations of ancient aurora as might be produced
if the solar wind had increased at times between one and two orders of
magnitude, millennia ago (Gold 1962 /Pontificiae Acad. Sci. Scr.
Varia/ *25* 159). In Peratt (2007 /Trans. Plasma Sci./ *35* 778), the
data were given on the source of light and its temporal change from a
current-increasing /Z/-pinch or dense plasma focus aurora. Orientation
and field-of-view data are given as surveyed and contributed from 139
countries, from sites and fields containing several millions of these
objects, the latest data coming from a 300 km survey along the Orinoco
river basin in Venezuela. In this paper, we include additional
petroglyph figures derivable from experiment and computer. This
information allows a reconstruction of the auroral form presumably
associated with extreme geomagnetic storms and shows, based on existent
geophysical evidence, relativistic electron flow inward at Earth's south
polar axis and hypervelocity proton impacts around the north polar axis.

Print publication: Issue T131 (October 2008)