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Submitted by Andy B on Sunday, 04 December 2022  Page Views: 158815

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The Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth - Hampshire and Isle of Wight
The Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth - Hampshire and Isle of Wight submitted by Andy B : Screen Shot from Google Earth with the Megalithic Portal dataset loaded. Hampshire, Dorset and the Isle of Wight (Vote or comment on this photo)
If you are a new visitor (welcome!) you may not know we offer downloads to view the locations of the tens of thousands of sites in our database on Google Earth,and in various GPS and satnav formats (GPX, Garmin and CSV). You can select which countries, regions, counties or site types you are interested in and download these individually as KML data files. Clicking on a point in Google Earth will pop up a summary description and thumbnail image from our site, where available. The icons are colour coded red and green like on the Portal's maps, red means we have images available, and green means please go and take one for us! (*)

Or you can slurp everything in one go as a zipped KMZ using the link below, but be aware that loading 50000+ points will slow Google Earth down if you turn them all on at once.

The individual download links are more slimline and faster - these can be found by looking in the right hand side bar on our normal site pages and search pages, and all together on our "Browse by Country/Type" page. (on the site pages you will need to be logged with your user account to see the download links)

The full KMZ download for Google Earth is here (updated Nov 2022)
http://www.megalithic.co.uk/downloads/megalithic_earth.kmz (7MB download). To speed things up the full KMZ download starts with all the place marker pins turned off in Google Earth, so you will need to put a tick in the boxes by the various sections you want to display, and move to the general area you want to look at first.

The full KMZ file may not be totally up to date, for the very latest from our live database just choose the KML files you want from the Browse by Country/Type page or look in the right hand menu bar of our site pages or search pages.

You will need to download and install the Google Earth Pro for desktop application, which is free and highly recommended - bottom of the page here: https://www.google.com/intl/en_uk/earth/versions/. You can't load in external files into the web version and I've not tried the mobile app versions

Once you have installed Google Earth Pro, choose 'open with Google Earth' when prompted or download the KMZ or KML files you want to your system, or do a File/Open from within the Google Earth program.

The contents of these downloaded files are copyright and for personal use only. Please ask if you want to use them for purposes other than Google Earth. No warranty is given as to the accuracy or suitability of this data, ie. please don't try to fly planes or aim missiles with them!

Satnav formats

You can also download in two different CSV formats, one for Garmin/Navman and one as a standard spreadsheet. I have also added GPX format which is a more up to date XML format and should be loadable into most smartphones and navigation systems.

You can also you can use the excellent POI Editor or other online tools to convert our files into many other formats. I have already done this to create a couple of OV2 files for TomTom satnavs based on our data for England and Wales.

To unlock full downloads of this data you need to sign up as a Contributory Member, otherwise the downloads are limited to 50 sites each. However the downloads in KML format are unrestricted.

Let us know how you get on, ask for help in the forum, and please help update our information by submitting corrections, updates, new text and images for inclusion back at the Megalithic Portal site pages that are linked in. To make a correction just leave a comment on page for that location. Have fun!
Andy B
Megalithic Portal Founder

(*) You may have spotted we now have four icon colours on the maps:
Red: Our Photo Pages - photos from our contributors available
Blue: Other Photo Pages - photos from 3rd party available, eg Creative Commons, Geograph, Flickr, Google Street View etc.
Yellow: Image Pages - archive image, illustration or plan only
Green: Text Pages - no image yet - please go and take one for us or submit an archive image or plan of the site

Note: The Megalithic Portal Google Earth download link has been updated, more details on our page here.

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"Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth Downloads" | Login/Create an Account | 56 News and Comments
  
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Re: Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth Downloads by Marco23 on Sunday, 06 August 2023
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Wow - I've been using the Portal for years and only just found this page!
Maybe you should promote this service near the top of the home page.
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Re: Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth Downloads by Anonymous on Wednesday, 12 October 2022
Absolutely amazing research tool - my only "complaint" is it's slow to load, but thats because there is so much data in it, so there is nothing that can be done by the developers. I would score this 10 out of 10.
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Google Earth Archaeology by Henry Rothwell by Andy B on Thursday, 11 April 2019
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Google Earth Archaeology, Wednesday, July 20, 2011, by Henry Rothwell

According to one of Google Earth’s co-creators the inspiration for Google Earth originated with a description of a piece of software called Earth, which was instrumental to the plot of Neal Stephenson’s dystopian (but surprisingly fun) cyberpunk classic Snowcrash. In Stephenson’s novel Earth was a globe across which was tiled satellite imagery, maps, architectural designs and low level aerial photography. By ‘grabbing’ the globe and zooming in, the user could glean as much geographical information as they could wish for.

More at
https://web.archive.org/web/20110922072554/http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/07/2011/google-earth-archaeology
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Ten years of Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth! by Andy B on Monday, 22 August 2016
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Ten years of Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth!
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Re: The Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth by Anonymous on Saturday, 21 February 2015
I live in Ballyhalbert Co.Down so I''ll pop out and take some pics for you when we get some decent weather. I walk past the stone at the motte and bailey a couple of times a week and have often wondered if it was or wasn''t ''old''.
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Re: The Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth by 43559959 on Monday, 16 February 2015
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Is it possible to use the KMZ file with Google Earth on iPad?

Per
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    Re: The Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth by Andy B on Monday, 16 February 2015
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    Yes I expect so Per but I don't know anyone who has used Google Earth on iPad. Please give it a try and let us know. I would recommend starting with one of the smaller downloads rather than the 'all in one' file.

    https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/google-earth/id293622097?mt=8
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      Re: The Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth by 43559959 on Monday, 16 February 2015
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      Google Earth works fine, but to access the KMZ file info does not seem to be possible with current versions of either KMZ file or Google Earth.

      Per
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Your post was included in the top content section of the June 2013 Google Earth News by Andy B on Sunday, 20 October 2013
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Google write: congratulations, your post [on the Megalithic Portal] was included in the top content section of the June 2013 edition of the Sightseer newsletter.

http://www.google.com/earth/connect/newsletter/jun13.html

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this is crashing google earth here by Anonymous on Sunday, 29 September 2013
greetings and thanks for sharing here.

i am using ge 7.1.1.1888 and as soon as i activate the main .kmz file, the earth view flickers and then google earth locks up. the smaller files are ok (the ones i have loaded).

i have 4GB of RAM here so the pc should be ok. any thoughts as to how to resolve this?

i have already switched between openGL and directx - no effect.
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Re: The Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth by JohnLindsay on Monday, 30 April 2012
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I started playing with google earth before I found this on the site, and starting playing with the history view which goes back to 1999. There is space I think for trying to work out how to make bibliography, which is a thread, and words and things, which is a thread work through linked data with google earth, which I am going to explore.
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Re: The Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth by davidmorgan on Thursday, 13 August 2009
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I've just downloaded a couple of CSV files and I see the coords are to only 2 decimal places - any chance of a few more, please?
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    Re: The Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth by Andy B on Thursday, 13 August 2009
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    Not for me they're not, on Google Earth or CSV. I'm getting 12 D.P. ???
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      Re: The Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth by davidmorgan on Friday, 14 August 2009
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      Sorry, Andy, my fault - the data were there, the cells in my spreadsheet just needed reformatting. Cheers.
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Re: The Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth by Anonymous on Sunday, 10 May 2009
Thanks Andy - the google earth addition is invaluable and has lead to me visiting many more sites. Gives a real sense of centres of known activity and there are some very obvious hotspots !!

Joy from Derbyshire
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Re: The Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth by Anonymous on Sunday, 04 May 2008
WoW Awesome my users will eat this stuff up we are always looking for primitive ways things were done having the locations that they can check out if they are in the area will be fantastic cant wait to post your site here.... Survival Bill : Survival & Bushcraft Forums
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Re: The Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth by Stone_de_Croze on Thursday, 20 December 2007
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Here's a link for anybody wanting info on Guernsey

http://www.gringod.com/2007/02/03/megalithic-guernsey/ for G

Stone de Croze
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Re: The Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth by Anonymous on Thursday, 18 October 2007
I have tried to click on links to download this for use in google earth. It is not working. Where can I find the download so I can load this into my google earth?

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Re: The Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth by tfar on Tuesday, 24 July 2007
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You can see a Google Earth video tour of the main megalithic temple sites in Malta and Gozo at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Te4WBL7trBw

Borġ in-Nadur, Xrobb il-Għaġin, Tas-Silġ, Tarxien, Kordin III, Ħal-Saflieni Hypogeum, Ħaġar Qim, Mnajdra, Ta’ Ħaġrat, Skorba, Tal-Qadi, Bugibba, Ġgantija.

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    Re: The Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth by Andy B on Tuesday, 24 July 2007
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    I think the director is a bit too keen on his whizzy titling special effects. The rest was good though.
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Re: The Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth by VirtHist on Tuesday, 24 July 2007
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Love this facility Adam, well done. I'm hoping we can make some simple reconstructions historical models for it at some point!
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Re: The Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth by davidmorgan on Tuesday, 24 July 2007
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Any chance of ordering the countries better? e.g. region/alphabetic country.
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Re: The Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth by Andy B on Tuesday, 24 July 2007
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Smaller Google Earth KML downloads for individual countries, counties/regions and site types are now available.

The downloads can be found on our "Browse by Country/Type" page
http://www.megalithic.co.uk/topics.php?countries=1

Click on the link at the top: "download data for Google Earth [KML] or Spreadsheet [CSV]" to make them visible.

Then click on the [KML] links to download your selections of data by individual country, county/region or site types.

The downloads are now compartmentalised into folders to allow some data to be turned off. This cures the problem of too many visible points overloading things.

You can also still get a full dump of all the Portal data as a compressed KMZ file here:
http://www.megalithic.org.uk/megp/megalithic_earth.kmz (1.8MB download)

You will need to download, install and run the Google Earth application first. You will need version 4, it will not work with Google Earth version 3.
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Re: The Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth by Anonymous on Sunday, 15 July 2007
Hi,

Would it be possible to group these in folders by, say country? The whole list brings my machine to a crawl, but if they were in folders, you can choose which are displayed.

Many thanks,

John

john@mccane.freeserve.co.uk
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    Re: The Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth by Andy B on Sunday, 15 July 2007
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    Yes we're working on this at the moment. Come back in a few weeks
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Re: The Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth by Anonymous on Wednesday, 25 April 2007
Unfortunately it doesn't work with the latest Google Earth Version. Loading the KMZ-File results in an Error-Message.
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    Re: The Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth by Klingon on Thursday, 26 April 2007
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    I use Google Earth 4.0.2737
    No problems.
    Can you post the error message?
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Re: The Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth by Enki on Monday, 26 March 2007
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Fantastic resource, Andy. Well done!
One problem - I saved the placemark to 'My Places', but next time I start Google Earth I don't have the site icons - just a square chequered blob. Am I doing something wrong?
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    Re: The Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth by Anonymous on Tuesday, 10 April 2007
    I don't think you're doing something wrong, I'm having the same problem....
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    Re: The Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth by davidmorgan on Tuesday, 10 April 2007
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    It is a huge file and certainly unwieldy.
    If got some Tukish sites in an 8KB .kmz file here...
    http://homepages.tesco.net/davidmorgan/Herostratics/ruins/Turkey.kmz
    Some sitings are guesses (they're the ones with question marks), but some of them you can really zoom in on.
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    Re: The Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth by davidmorgan on Tuesday, 10 April 2007
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    Sorry, I got it wrong because I had 2 subdirectories called Turkey!
    There's a slightly larger file (15KB) there now.
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    Re: The Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth by aliguana on Monday, 21 May 2007
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    that checkered blob is this:

    http://www.megalithic.org.uk/megp/images/article/ge_icons_g.png

    it looks like Google Earth isn't saving the actual icon, just a link to it. Except the link leads to ALL the icons, not just one.

    If you have Photoshop or something you could chop it up, but you'd lose the meaning then.

    Any chance you could post up the individual icons (with their name) so those of us who add to My Places can re-ad the icon too?
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      Re: The Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth by Andy B on Tuesday, 22 May 2007
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      I'm not using individual icons, they are all taken from that icon block you linked to. Google Earth is supposed to be able to use 'blocks' of icons like this. This is deliberate to save downloading lots of fiddly little icons and I am following their spec exactly in doing this.

      You will have to complain to Google to find out why it's not working. It works for me so I suspect it is something to do with the abilities of different video cards. Very annoying, sorry.

      I do intend to split up the download but have been busy with other things on the Portal. Glad to see people are using it, I will get to it in due course.
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        Re: The Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth by Andy B on Tuesday, 22 May 2007
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        ... one reason for doing it like this is that we actually have 3 different icons for each site, a green one (no photo), red one (photo) and grey one (destroyed site), in the same style as the Megalith Maps. Doing this with individual icon files = 70 odd icons x 3 = a nightmare.
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Re: The Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth by Anonymous on Thursday, 14 September 2006
I would love to see this in v3.0 and with files by region. Not everyone is working with new enough and powerful enough processors to employ this.It crashes V3.
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    Re: The Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth by Andy B on Thursday, 14 September 2006
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    Output by Region is coming soon. Unfortunately the many 'foreign' characters in our European sites mean it won't work with G.E. v.3. It's their bug not ours! Thanks
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Re: Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth by Andy B on Friday, 25 August 2006
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We're picking up worldwide coverage of this, here from Mexico: Google Earth et la Préhistoire
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Re: The Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth by Nick- on Thursday, 24 August 2006
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Excellent idea this, ..... But with regards to French sites listed on the Megalithic Portal, "Google Earth" doesn't provide any satellite photos with enough detail ...... With google one gets a very distant blurred patchwork of fields when viewing French sites.... Using "Geoportail" (IGN site) photo of the 'Menhir du Ger', I can zoom in close enough to see the stone itself...

http://www.geoportail.fr/

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    Re: The Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth by Andy B on Thursday, 24 August 2006
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    Thanks for the suggestion Nick. Note to Klingon: Is it possible to create long/lat links to Geoportail views?
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      Re: The Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth by Klingon on Friday, 15 September 2006
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      Unfortunately not. They use a cartesian coordinate system, not lat/long and the map is inside an iframe in the main window.
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        Putting deCarte before the horse ... by bat400 on Friday, 15 September 2006
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        I guess we ought to have known they would use a cartesian coordinate system ..... :)
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      Re: The Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth by Andy B on Friday, 15 September 2006
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      I thought not. Note to all French people: Sorry, no offence to you, but your great competitor to Google Earth is PANTS (useless). Please complain to your government and ask them to fix it so we can search for and link to sites.
      Thanks.
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        Re: The Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth by Nick- on Sunday, 17 December 2006
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        Just saw this comment LOL. I've been trying to get through to Geoportail these last few weeks, and it just will not load(nothing to do with the browser I use either)........ And trying to copy links to certain areas does not work too..........So the site is crap in many ways.

        But trying to use Google to have a look at sites in France is a wasted effort.......Lousy distant blurred satellite images just aren't any use at all.........

        And Google in general, is proving to be rather less 'pure' than assumed before, especially with their logging of personal data, and kniving with Chinese censorship.......
        [ Reply to This ]
          Re: The Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth by TheCaptain on Monday, 18 December 2006
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          After struggling for a while, I have learned to use the WONDERFUL geoportail website. It isn't the most user friendly, but is improving all the time.

          First of all I have to turn off my firewall and suchlike, otherwise the pictures and maps do not load. There must be a better way around this. Then to find places, I have to translate into degrees, minutes and seconds from decimal degrees.

          But it is possible to search for community names as well as coordinates, and there are the 1:25000 maps as well as fantastic aerial (and satellite) pictures, where individual stones and buildings etc can be made out. One day I'll get round to posting a userguide for French sites here.....
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Re: The Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth by Andy B on Wednesday, 23 August 2006
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I've been having a look at some stats. Interestingly we have over 2000 sites in our database with just a 'Nearest Town', 'Nearest Village' and no proper long/lat data.

If anyone spots one of these (there are a lot in the USA and Far East), see if you can work out a long/lat and post it on the site page as a comment. This will allow us to add the site to the map. It doesn't have to be exact, just enough to give the approximate location that will give others something to go on when looking for the site in the field. (If it's an approximate location, please say this too so we can add this as a note.)

Another interesting statistic - how many ancient sites does the Megalithic Portal list from the 5 countries of the British Isles?
Currently 8737
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Re: Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth by Shunt on Wednesday, 23 August 2006
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I've saved many spots on GE already but this is very convenient!
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Re: Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth by Anonymous on Wednesday, 23 August 2006
Great - very cool.

It would be good to be able to remove some of the sites? Say by country? But very good work done there.
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    Re: Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth by Andy B on Wednesday, 23 August 2006
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    This will hopefully be on the way shortly
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    Re: Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth by aliguana on Sunday, 20 May 2007
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    yeah, it would be better if it could be split up by country.. so you could just download Ireland, or France, or Sweden etc. Awesome work though.
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Re: Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth by LizH on Wednesday, 23 August 2006
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Fascinating Andy though almost too much information - difficult to see anything in the more crowded places. Also a few probs. with mapping? I found some sites apparently in Nigeria which are actually in Europe! (Will let you know details if you want). But I can see it may use up some lunchtimes.
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    Re: Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth by Andy B on Wednesday, 23 August 2006
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    Liz,
    If you spot a site that has an error, please click on the link in the Google Earth listing to go to the Portal site page. Then add a comment to the page.
    Cheers,
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Re: Megalithic Portal meets Google Earth by Anonymous on Wednesday, 23 August 2006
Fantastic.
Congratulations on this success. Terry Meaden
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