Van alle tijden
hebben voorouders zich verbonden gevoeld met het Omringende op Aarde, in de
Aarde en erboven. Het volgen van de sterren was een opgave en een maat. Ze vergeleken sterrengroepen met dieren
die ze kennen daar een diersoort een identieke correspondentie had met een
kosmische constellatie.
Ook werden
herinneringen aan grote cataclysma’s -meteoor inslagen vereeuwigd zoals die van rond
11.000 BC en 15.200 BC.
Cave
paintings reveal use of complex astronomy
"Some
of the world’s oldest cave paintings have revealed how ancient people had
relatively advanced knowledge of astronomy.
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.
Planetary
shifts
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.
Around
the time that Neanderthals became extinct, and perhaps before mankind settled
in Western Europe, people could define dates to within 250 years, the study
shows.
Ancient
insights
The
findings indicate that the astronomical insights of ancient people were far
greater than previously believed.
Their
knowledge may have aided navigation of the open seas, with implications for our
understanding of prehistoric human migration.
European
sites
Researchers
from the Universities of Edinburgh and Kent studied details of Palaeolithic and
Neolithic art featuring animal symbols at sites in Turkey, Spain, France and
Germany.
They
found all the sites used the same method of date-keeping based on sophisticated
astronomy, even though the art was separated in time by tens of thousands of
years.
Significant
event
Researchers
clarified earlier findings from a study of stone carvings at one of these sites
– Gobekli Tepe in modern-day Turkey – which is interpreted as a memorial to a
devastating comet strike around 11,000 BC.
This
strike was thought to have initiated a mini ice-age known as the Younger Dryas
period.
They
also decoded what is probably the best known ancient artwork – the Lascaux
Shaft Scene in France.
The
work, which features a dying man and several animals, may commemorate another
comet strike around 15,200 BC, researchers suggest.
Painting
dates
The
team confirmed their findings by comparing the age of many examples of cave art
– known from chemically dating the paints used – with the positions of stars in
ancient times as predicted by sophisticated software.
The
world’s oldest sculpture, the Lion-Man of Hohlenstein-Stadel Cave, from 38,000
BC, was also found to conform to this ancient time-keeping system.
This
study was published in Athens Journal of History.
Early
cave art shows that people had advanced knowledge of the night sky within the
last ice age. Intellectually, they were hardly any different to us today. These
findings support a theory of multiple comet impacts over the course of human
development, and will probably revolutionise how prehistoric populations are
seen."
Dr
Martin Sweatman
School
of Engineering
Related
links
Some of the world's oldest cave
paintings have revealed how ancient people had relatively advanced knowledge of
astronomy. Animal symbols 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
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
Some of the world's oldest art has revealed how
ancient people had relatively advanced knowledge of astronomy. Animal symbols,
such as the Lion-Man of Hohlenstein-Stadel Cave, 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: Oleg Kuchar Museum
Ulm, Germany
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-11-prehistoric-cave-art-reveals-ancient.html#jCp
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-11-prehistoric-cave-art-reveals-ancient.html#jCp
