Prehistoric cave art reveals ancient use of complex astronomy

[Jim__]

From phys.org:

Some of the world's oldest art has revealed how ancient people had relatively advanced knowledge of astronomy. Animal symbols, such as those used at Gobekli Tepe in modern day Turkey, represent star constellations in the night sky, and are used to mark dates and events such as comet strikes, analysis from the University of Edinburgh suggests. Credit: Alistair Coombs

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The artworks, at sites across Europe, are not simply depictions of wild animals, as was previously thought. Instead, the animal symbols represent star constellations in the night sky, and are used to represent dates and mark events such as comet strikes, analysis suggests.

They reveal that, perhaps as far back as 40,000 years ago, humans kept track of time using knowledge of how the position of the stars slowly changes over thousands of years.

The findings suggest that ancient people understood an effect caused by the gradual shift of Earth's rotational axis. Discovery of this phenomenon, called precession of the equinoxes, was previously credited to the ancient Greeks.

more ...

[AllaN01Bear]

1. goodnes gracious .

[LudwigPastorius]

2. Is that three 1968 Volkswagen Beetles parked...

in a row at top of that stone?

[benld74]

4. No just their doors

[pscot]

5. I'm pretty sure

Those are teh elephants dat hold up da sky.

[Hassler]

7. +1

[JohnnyRingo]

8. That's the first thing I noticed...

...proving we haven't evolved all that much since then.

While I'm at it though, it'd be another 40,000 years before we invented the convertible.

[lillypaddle]

3. And the beat goes on ...

So much of import in the world, the past, and hopefully one day what is to come.

And here we are.

[Judi Lynn]

6. Fascinating. Thank you. n/t