Prehistoric Astronomers 7:30PM Sun 14 June SBS 1

[gary]

As part of SBS's celebration of the International Year of Astronomy.

A scientific investigation that questions all previous studies on the origins of astronomy. It is commonly known that 35,000 years ago, humans were brutish and primitive, but what if this prehistoric human was clever enough to develop in depth scientific knowledge? New data tend to prove that these humans actually invented astronomy. For the last 20 years, Chantal Jègues-Wolkiewiez, an independent astronomer and ethnologist, has led a rigorous investigation to prove this theory. According to her studies, hunter gatherers spent long nights observing the sky, calculating, and recording their discoveries either on the walls of caves or on animal bones. Thanks to their analyses they could measure time and adapt to weather change. In this film, she shares her stunning conclusions.

Genre: Documentary
Language: English, French
Rating: G
Other: Closed Captions
Widescreen
Subtitles
Duration: 60 mins

[GrampianStars (Rob)]

imo highly unlikely as apparently studies show there was no language and no writing 35k years ago
so there was not one person capable to develop in depth scientific knowledge

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

I saw that advertised last night. It'll be interesting viewing.

[wavelandscott (Scott)]

It was all done with the help of "ancient astronauts"...

I could not resist a reference to alien visitation in early human (pre) history.

[Ric]

Thanks Gary for the heads up. I'll make sure to catch that one, it sounds quite interesting.

[h0ughy (David)]

Gary when you posted this I immediately though of a few people LOL but then realised that it was a TV doco..... looking forward to this.....

[TrevorW]

: poke::c onfuse3:
Ugh, Ugh,

[Enchilada]

Interesting story tonight - and looking forward to it.

In a similar vein, others might also like to read an arvix paper by Ray Norris and D. Hamacher "The Astronomy of Aboriginal Australia" http://arxiv.org/abs/0906.0155 This has some perspective from the ancient peoples of Australia, away from the slightly more eurocentric views in this program. (Usual pics on caves in France, no doubt - at least as shown in the promos for the programme.)
Regardless, it is a nice primer and an interesting and thoughtful article on its own!

[M54 (Molly)]

Looks very interesting. I'll be watching. Ta.

[lacad01 (Adam)]

Quite interesting viewing I thought. Wasn't aware of the detail of the paintings in those caves, much more advanced than primitive stick figures.

[Ric]

Quite a good documentary tonight. A very interesting and plausible theory.

[Omaroo (Chris Malikoff)]

Yes, interestingly presented. Just because these drawings were made eons ago, we musn't forget that the artists were intelligent people, and really it isn't a huge leap in understanding to start thinking about representing the thousands of dots we see in the sky in shapes reminiscant of earthly sustenance. Again, angles weren't difficult to define either - "so many thumbs to the left and six little fingers high" kind of stuff - a sense of proportion would have helped. Not too difficult. Very cool nontheless!

What I don't really understand, though, is how there were so many caves around whos entrances and topography were perfectly aligned to the sun on just two occasions - soltice and equinox. I can imagine that light would have flooded these caves on certain days and not others, but almost certainly for days if not weeks either side of solstice or equinox - not just "on the day", which is what I think they were trying to convey.

[AdrianF (Adrian)]

Missed the show had visitors turn up who have no appreciation of the finer things in life (astronomy).
I will see if I can get the show from SBS

Adrian

[Wavytone]

Rather liked the pocket lunar calendar - the bone with 69 holes in it. Calibrate with the cave paintings to confirm which month it is (if there is any doubt) and you have a perpetual calendar.

And simpler than the perpetual calendars of today.

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

Very interesting show. Most of it was quite plausible.
Imagine, the very first Astro orientated Community!!
If we lived back in those times, I imagine that we'd be doing exactly the same thing. Instead of logbooks and imaging, we'd be carving and painting our observations onto stone.

[gmbfilter (Geoff)]

Very cleaver of the ancient astronomers to work out where sun is going to be 17000 years later
Everything is moving about...continents... precession. Wasn't the moon further away?
Cave entrances would align to equinox then not now. There was no mention of this in the program, perhaps I missed it.
I thing It is very likely that marked positions of sun stars moon we were trying to understand our world.

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

Geoff, they did mention that it all fell into place when they ran the information through a planetarium program.

[gmbfilter (Geoff)]

Originally Posted by jjjnettie

Geoff, they did mention that it all fell into place when they ran the information through a planetarium program.

I did miss it

[avandonk]

Geoff she went to a planetarium where precession of the poles and the real relative motion of nearby bright stars were all accounted for. The date for this calculation was worked out by dating the artifacts. You really must pay better attention.

Very bright innovative women scientists are often ignored by the fraternity of the old wise men scientists until the evidence is irrefutable. This has happened many times in the past. There was a woman scientist whose experimental evidence suggested jumping genes in the 1930's. Mainstream scientists said she was totally wrong. She was finally awarded the Nobel Prize for this groundbreaking work when she was 84!

The structure of DNA would not have been solved without the data from a woman crystallographer. The two gentlemen, and I use the term very loosely, involved took her diffraction images without her knowledge from her lab. She got no credit from either of them. One even had the nerve to say in his book that she would have been much better without her glasses and did something with her hair. This twit did not even realize he was flaunting his misogyny for the entire world to see!

There are many more instances of this sort of thing. It still goes on today by the look of it.

I have worked with many women scientists and found them to be far better than the average male scientist. Of course not better than me!

Bert

[Robert9 (Robert)]

Missed the show. SBS don't seem to be putting up on the web either. Damn it!