ANCIENT Europeans had a sophisticated grasp of astronomy, research led by a team at the University of Edinburgh has shown.
Cave paintings in Turkey, Spain, France, and Germany, thought to date back 40,000 years, were previously believed to depict wild animals. However, the research conducted in Scotland’s capital, in collaboration with the University of Kent, suggests that these animals actually represent star constellations.
These Palaeolithic and Neolithic drawings, it is understood, were used to mark events, through knowledge of the gradual movements of stars over thousands of years.
Dr Martin Sweatman, who led the study at the university’s School of Engineering, said: “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.”
The analysis by Sweatman and Alistair Coombs is based on the precession of the equinoxes – the gradual shift of Earth’s axis – which was believed to have been discovered by the ancient Greeks.
But the new research suggests even before the Neanderthals had died out, people could mark major dates, such as comet strikes, within a 250-year range.
The team in Edinburgh analysed ancient artworks including Gobekli Tepe in Turkey, dating from 11,000 BC, and the famous Lascaux Shaft Scene in France, from 15,200 BC. By chemically dating these ancient paintings and comparing them to computer projections of the ancient position of the stars, Sweatman and Coombs argue that both works symbolise major comet strikes.
The world’s oldest sculpture, the Lion-Man of Hohlenstein-Stadel, from 38,000 BC, also appears to use the same time-keeping technique.
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