Some of the world's oldest cave paintings accept revealed how ancient people had relatively advanced cognition of astronomy.
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| Some of the world's oldest cave paintings accept revealed how ancient people had relatively advanced cognition of astronomy. Animal symbols stand upwards for star constellations inward the black sky, as well as are used to grade dates as well as events such every bit comet strikes, analysis from the University of Edinburgh suggests [Credit: Alistair Coombs] |
They break that, peradventure every bit far dorsum every bit 40,000 years ago, humans kept rails of fourth dimension using cognition of how the seat of the stars like shooting fish in a barrel changes over thousands of years.
The findings advise that ancient people understood an termination caused yesteryear 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 fourth dimension that Neanderthals became extinct, as well as peradventure before mankind settled inward Western Europe, people could define dates to inside 250 years, the written report shows.
The findings signal that the astronomical insights of ancient people were far greater than previously believed. Their cognition may accept aided navigation of the opened upwards seas, amongst implications for our agreement of prehistoric human migration.
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| Some of the world's oldest fine art has revealed how ancient people had relatively advanced cognition of astronomy. Animal symbols, such every bit those used at Gobekli Tepe inward modern 24-hour interval Turkey, stand upwards for star constellations inward the black sky, as well as are used to grade dates as well as events such every bit comet strikes, analysis from the University of Edinburgh suggests [Credit: Alistair Coombs] |
They flora all the sites used the same method of date-keeping based on sophisticated astronomy, fifty-fifty though the fine art was separated inward fourth dimension yesteryear tens of thousands of years.
Researchers clarified before findings from a written report of rock carvings at i of these sites - Gobekli Tepe inward modern-day Turkey - which is interpreted every bit a memorial to a devastating comet attain some 11,000 BC. This attain was idea to accept initiated a mini ice-age known every bit the Younger Dryas period.
They also decoded what is likely the best known ancient artwork - the Lascaux Shaft Scene inward France. The work, which features a dying human being as well as several animals, may commemorate some other comet attain some 15,200 BC, researchers suggest.
The squad confirmed their findings yesteryear comparison the historic menstruation of many examples of cave fine art - known from chemically dating the paints used - amongst the positions of stars inward ancient times every bit predicted yesteryear sophisticated software.
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| Some of the world's oldest fine art has revealed how ancient people had relatively advanced knowledge of astronomy. Animal symbols, such every bit the Lion-Man of Hohlenstein-Stadel Cave, represent star constellations inward the black sky, as well as are used to grade dates as well as events such every bit comet strikes, analysis from the University of Edinburgh suggests [Credit: Oleg Kuchar Museum Ulm, Germany] |
This written report was published inward Athens Journal of History.
Dr Martin Sweatman, of the University of Edinburgh's School of Engineering, who led the study, said: "Early cave fine art shows that people had advanced cognition of the black heaven inside the concluding H2O ice age. Intellectually, they were hardly whatever dissimilar to us today.
"These findings back upwards a theory of multiple comet impacts over the course of written report of human development, as well as volition likely revolutionise how prehistoric populations are seen."
Source: University of Edinburgh [November 27, 2018]
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