Religion Explains What They Did There. Geology Explains Why They Built There.

If a structure is built purely for ceremony or religious observance, its precise geographical location should be largely irrelevant - any elevated or prominent site would serve the purpose equally well. Randall uses that logic to expose a problem with the conventional interpretation of sacred sites. Almost invariably, these structures are found in deliberate association with specific geological features - the type of bedrock beneath them, the position of fault lines, the movement of underground water, and the presence of surface water. That pattern is too consistent and too precise to be explained by religious preference alone.

Stonehenge is the example Randall reaches for - a site archaeology classifies as sacred on the basis of its apparent ceremonial function, without fully accounting for why that specific location on the Salisbury Plain was chosen over any other. Randall’s argument is that the religious function is real but secondary. The primary determinant of where these structures were built was geological - and the near-universal association between sacred architecture and water, whether surface or subterranean, points to a sophisticated understanding of the Earth's energy systems that the ceremonial explanation consistently fails to address. The builders knew what was beneath the ground. That knowledge, Randall suggests, was the whole point.