Saturday, February 12, 2022

The Ancient Stargazing Origins of Timekeeping and Navigation : Celestial Chronology, Land Survey, and Mapmaking (Cartography) by Astronomy

Prehistoric Mankind's Primary Technologies Were Rooted in Astronomy and the Prevailing Economies Were Based on Land and Property, Mapped via the Stars

To understand the development of human civilization, it is important to recognize that mankind's first "scientific" technologies were arguably based on primitive "stargazing", i.e. what we modernly call "astronomy".

No less a thinker than Bertrand Russell wrote in Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits (Simon and Schuster, Clarion Books, New York, 1948) that:

"Astronomy is the oldest of the sciences, and the contemplation of the heavens, with their periodic regularities, gave men their first conceptions of natural law."

Furthermore, there is a direct connection to astronomy in terms of both land survey and land or sea navigation, as written at the Wikipedia under Surveying:

"The primary way of determining one's position on the earth's surface when no known positions are nearby is by astronomic observations. Observations to the sun, moon and stars could all be made using navigational techniques. Once the instrument's position and bearing to a star is determined, the bearing can be transferred to a reference point on the earth and which can then be used as a base for further observations. Survey-accurate astronomic positions were difficult to observe and calculate and so tended to be a base off which many other measurements were made. Since the advent of the GPS system, astronomic observations are rare as GPS allows positions to be determined adequately over most of the surface of the earth."

Since human survival has at all times depended on either ownership or control of actual physical territory on our planet Earth, that same astronomy served as the simplest way to map out that territory, with maps made to mirror the ever-present and ready-made sky map of the heavens, "as above, so below".

At our Megaliths.net website on megalithic cultures we have written:

"As observed by Alice Cunningham Fletcher (Alice C. Fletcher) in her 1902 publication in the American Anthropologist, there is ample evidence that some ancient cultures, e.g. the Pawnee in Nebraska, geographically located their villages according to patterns seen in stars of the heavens. Fletcher, A. C. (1902), Star Cult Among the Pawnee – A Preliminary Report, American Anthropologist, 4:730–736. doi:10.1525/aa.1902.4.4.02a00050."

To the importance of astronomy for ancient peoples we can add timekeeping, as written some time ago at Curious About Astronomy:

"In ancient times, the practical need for timekeeping and navigation was one of the primary reasons for the study of astronomy. The celestial origins of timekeeping and navigation are still evident."

In spite of the above observations, anthropologists and archaeologists worldwide generally proceed in their academic work as if the ancients knew more or less nothing of astronomy and, furthermore, placed little or no importance upon it for land survey, navigation, timekeeping and chronology, whereas the probative evidence that we have increasingly found presents exactly the opposite picture.

Astronomy DOMINATED the ancient world.

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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