Tuesday, February 24, 2015

The Great Thunderbird Challenge for the World's Archaeologists, Astronomers and Archaeoastronomers : One Petroglyph and 60 Stars!

The Great Thunderbird Challenge for the World's Archaeologists, Astronomers and Archaeoastronomers is now underway.

If you are a student, teacher, researcher, or administrator at a college or university, but are not professionally active in those professions, ask your local archaeologist, astronomer or archaeoastronomer if they know the answers to either of the two questions below. Give them a chance to show their stuff.

What are the Questions for the Challenge?

My friends tell us that in our work we should give the alleged and so-called mainstream "experts" in the archaeological, astronomical and archaeoastronomical communities more of an opportunity to show their stuff.

Accordingly, before publishing our next bundle of postings on "The Great Mound, Petroglyph and Painted Rock Art Journey of Native America",
we have decided to give the mainstream experts a chance... before our next bundle of postings hits the press....

First, Question 1, we would like to know from the archaeologists where the petroglyph redrawn below is located geographically. We know, of course, where it is, and if you are in none of these professions, don't waste your time looking online. You won't find it there. This petroglyph thus far languishes in obscurity, but, to the credit of the archaeological profession, it IS published. Where is it?



Second, Question 2, to illustrate the essence of "The Great Mound, Petroglyph and Painted Rock Art Journey of Native America", which has appeared in 18 postings, with many more to come, but has similarly languished in undeserved obscurity, which we intend to remedy here, we now ask of the astronomers: 
"Is there a group of visible stars (star magnitude limit 6.0 or brighter) out there that looks EXACTLY like that petroglyph? 
Gee, astronomers, nothing familiar? Here is some assistance. 60 stars!



We are not interested in chance similarities. Rather, at a star magnitude limit of 6.0, the default setting at e.g. the top astronomy software program Starry Night Pro (http://astronomy.starrynight.com/), we expect that this group of stars -- if it exists, as we know it does -- should have EXACTLY the number of stars noted above in the image for the corresponding section of that image -- and note that those numbers reflect EXACTLY the number of cupules (cupmarks) on that petroglyph, a petroglyph probably 5000 years old. 60 stars! Is that astronomy?!! In any case, you can be sure that WE know the answer.

This challenge should be a piece of cake for the world's astronomers, who spend much of their lives observing the stars. Could they have missed something this obvious?

We will proceed shortly to our next bundle of postings on "The Great Mound, Petroglyph and Painted Rock Art Journey of Native America" and when you know our next destination, you will be close to solution of the "Challenge" in terms of a location for that petroglyph.

We repeat. The Great Thunderbird Challenge for the World's Archaeologists, Astronomers and Archaeoastronomers is now underway. If you are at a college or university, but are not professionally active in those professions, ask your local teaching archaeologist, astronomer or archaeoastronomer if they know the answers to our questions. Give them a chance to show their stuff.

Or, if you do not get the right answers, you can look at our coming postings.

Hat tip to Gert Meier for pointing out to me recently that your average human being on this planet, academic or otherwise, sees absolutely no connection between rock cupmarks (viz. cupules) and stars. We aim to change that quick!


Most Popular Posts of All Time

Sky Earth Native America


Sky Earth Native America 1:
American Indian Rock Art Petroglyphs Pictographs
Cave Paintings Earthworks & Mounds as Land Survey & Astronomy
,
Volume 1, Edition 2, 266 pages, by Andis Kaulins.

  • Sky Earth Native America 2:
    American Indian Rock Art Petroglyphs Pictographs
    Cave Paintings Earthworks & Mounds as Land Survey & Astronomy
    ,
    Volume 2, Edition 2, 262 pages, by Andis Kaulins.

  • Both volumes have the same cover except for the labels "Volume 1" viz. "Volume 2".
    The image on the cover was created using public domain space photos of Earth from NASA.

    -----

    Both book volumes contain the following basic book description:
    "Alice Cunningham Fletcher observed in her 1902 publication in the American Anthropologist
    that there is ample evidence that some ancient cultures in Native America, e.g. the Pawnee in Nebraska,
    geographically located their villages according to patterns seen in stars of the heavens.
    See Alice C. Fletcher, Star Cult Among the Pawnee--A Preliminary Report,
    American Anthropologist, 4, 730-736, 1902.
    Ralph N. Buckstaff wrote:
    "These Indians recognized the constellations as we do, also the important stars,
    drawing them according to their magnitude.
    The groups were placed with a great deal of thought and care and show long study.
    ... They were keen observers....
    The Pawnee Indians must have had a knowledge of astronomy comparable to that of the early white men."
    See Ralph N. Buckstaff, Stars and Constellations of a Pawnee Sky Map,
    American Anthropologist, Vol. 29, Nr. 2, April-June 1927, pp. 279-285, 1927.
    In our book, we take these observations one level further
    and show that megalithic sites and petroglyphic rock carving and pictographic rock art in Native America,
    together with mounds and earthworks, were made to represent territorial geographic landmarks
    placed according to the stars of the sky using the ready map of the starry sky
    in the hermetic tradition, "as above, so below".
    That mirror image of the heavens on terrestrial land is the "Sky Earth" of Native America,
    whose "rock stars" are the real stars of the heavens, "immortalized" by rock art petroglyphs, pictographs,
    cave paintings, earthworks and mounds of various kinds (stone, earth, shells) on our Earth.
    These landmarks were placed systematically in North America, Central America (Meso-America) and South America
    and can to a large degree be reconstructed as the Sky Earth of Native America."


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