According to archeology data, in the prehistoric period closest to us, the development of civilizations took place in several centers. These are Sumer, Egypt, Anatolia, the Indus Valley, Shan in China, Central America and Peru. To meet the definition of "civilization," a society must have at least two of three characteristics: cities with populations of more than 5,000 inhabitants, a writing system, and well-developed ceremonial centers. In the so-called period of the megalith in North-Western Europe, only the last component was noted. There were definitely no cities with 5,000 inhabitants or more and, as far as we know, there was no written language either. And yet, if we correctly interpret the nature and purpose of complex British (and French) stone ceremonial centers, then we have functional civilized communities,whose level of intellectual abilities only slightly differed from that of more modern societies.
The history of British megalithic culture begins with the first colonization of Britain by Neolithic (stone-using) farmers before –4000. Until recently, it was customary among historians to write about our Neolithic ancestors as barbarians and savages. Gordon Child, the great European historian, continually referred to pre-Roman northern and western Europeans called barbarians, thus supporting the myth put forward by the apologists of imperial Rome who ignored the rich and complex local culture of the Iron Age. A similar limited view prevailed among the European settlers of the New World in the Americas.
The Neolithic farmers who colonized Britain in the fifth millennium were a relatively complex product of a long evolution of the human race going back at least three million years. The discovery of the so-called "1470" man by Richard Lyceus, as well as the discoveries of a joint Franco-American expedition in North Ethiopia, pushed the origin of man back to the times long before the Pleistocene Ice Age.
The era of the Pleistocene, during which man developed within the framework of his Paleolithic culture, covered the period of the geological history of the Earth, when at least four huge glaciers alternately advanced and retreated. At times, these glaciers covered up to a third of the current land area. In the late Pleistocene, during the last glaciation of Europe, the human culture of the Stone Age reached a high level. The peak of development of the Upper Paleolithic culture falls between –30,000 and –10,000, in which the earliest known examples of prehistoric man's art are found. Despite the absence of any significant amount of data about the prehistoric past of man, his art, classically simple and aesthetic,throws a solid cultural bridge from the past to the present and provides material for modern man to search for his historical roots.
In the 19th century, the chronology of the prehistoric past of man was based on a simple triple system of the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages, taking into account the consistent use of these materials for the manufacture of weapons and tools. The Stone Age was subdivided into three parts: Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic, or Old Stone, Middle Stone and New Stone Age. Since late Victorian times, when the Upper Paleolithic was incorporated into general ancient history, these cultural sections provided convenient chronological dates with which various ideas and theories could be linked.
It is generally accepted that the Upper Paleolithic in Britain lasted from s. -50 - 30,000 to s. –12,000; Mesolithic s. –12,000 to –4000, and the Neolithic from s. –4000 to s. –2000. In other cases, the demarcation line between the Mesolithic and Neolithic can be pushed back several millennia.
Subsequent advances in archeology, however, have shown the imperfection of this simplified cultural sequence. Over time, this three-century system has been reworked into a complex and interconnected chronology that makes the panorama of ancient European history less focused. Fortunately, in order to establish a correlative chronology, we can still return to the blurry and clear picture of Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic cultures, tracing it to the characteristic features of caves and stone dwellings of Northwestern France (see below).
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In an even more simplified form, the history of a person is expressed in a double picture, where a person first appears before us as a hunter and gatherer, and then, p. -10,000, cattle breeder and farmer. Sometimes these two periods are referred to as the Palaeolithic food gathering stage and the Neolithic food growing stage. The shift from hunting and gathering to farming was of great importance for astrological observation. It was the spread of agriculture and the cultivation of crops that caused the need for accurate calendar devices that tell people when it is better to sow and harvest.
The question often arises: did ancient man have the innate ability to use heavenly bodies for orientation, like some species of animals?
Some bird species are unmistakably star-guided, but this innate ability appears to have been shaped by evolutionary factors related to reproduction and seasonal food availability. Many birds migrate thousands of kilometers, and some even from subarctic to subantarctic regions and back. Pigeons, as it turned out, have an innate ability for both distance and target orientation. To do this, they can use either the stars in the night sky, or the Sun or the lines of the Earth's magnetic field, depending on which mechanism is more useful for them in a particular situation.
In its biological sense, orientation is necessary for all living things, but ancient people did not seem to have special evolutionary incentives to develop the ability to navigate long distances, as in the case of birds, fish and marine mammals, since human migration was very limited geographically. sense. But at the same time, primitive man had some skills to determine the right direction [3].
Research into neo-primitive societies, such as the Aborigines of Australia and especially the Polynesians, has made it possible to understand how these peoples use the sun, moon and stars for practical purposes. Lacking writing, tools, or maps, the Polynesians created a sophisticated navigation system that surpassed that of the Europeans who first encountered them. This was by no means an intuitive art of orientation, it was a system created by trial and error and used for transoceanic navigation, since their ancestors first went to travel in the Pacific Ocean at the beginning of the first millennium BC. e.
Captain Cook, himself a brilliant navigator, was fascinated by the Aboriginal skill and wrote in his logbook: “These people sail in these seas from island to island for several hundred leagues, the sun serves as their compass during the day, and the moon and stars at night. They know the names of all the stars and in which part of the sky they will appear on the horizon, they also know the time of their annual appearance and disappearance so precisely that it is even difficult for European astronomers to believe it."
It is helpful to remember this proven ability of neo-primitive man and to be prepared to face the possibility that European Neolithic communities (and even early Upper Paleolithic communities) may have used the Sun, Moon, and stars as well.
It can be assumed that Homo sapiens retained the biological traces of rhythm associated with lunar tides. He inherited this from his distant ancestors - fish. The revolution of the Earth in relation to the Moon occurs in 24 hours and 50 minutes. The moon orbits the earth, providing varying lighting and tidal conditions, in 29.5 days, while the earth and moon orbit the sun in approximately 365 1/4 days. Thanks to these differential influences, the evolution of humans and animals obeyed daily and seasonal (short-term and long-term) changes, and biologically humans adapted to these rhythmic cosmic influences long before he could take the first steps towards their meaningful understanding.
It can hardly be considered a mere coincidence that the female menstrual period coincides with the monthly intervals of the lunar cycle. It should, however, be recognized that this menstrual cycle has now expanded to both sides of the interval (in extreme cases, from 20 to 120 days), and the female cycle, as such, no longer coincides with the phases of the moon, but this in no way denies the probability of a connection between its evolutionary origin and a given temporal structure.
The successful breeding of some sea creatures depends on the rhythms of the tides and variations in night lighting. The females of the Atlantic fireworm lay eggs, and the males fertilize them during the 18-hour period dictated by the Moon. This happens once a month before the last quarter of the moon. A very observant Aristotle noted the swelling of the ovaries of sea orchids during the full moon. Among land animals, the sexual cycle of hares, which in mythology has long been associated with the Moon, is regulated by the phases of the Moon. The works of Soviet biologists have shown that if the innate sexual cycle of hares coincides with the period of the new moon (dark nights), then this can radically upset their sexual process and significantly affect sterility.
The fact that a person suffering from mental disorders retains some connection with the periodic motions of the moon is still reflected in the influx of psychiatric patients during the full moon. In the 18th and 19th centuries, medical lectures sometimes talked a lot about the relationship of diseases with lunar changes. The report of a certain Richard Mead "On the effects of the Sun and the Moon on the bodies of animals" was typical of this genre, in which such cases were described quite vividly: "… A girl of normal, healthy constitution felt good for several days, but during the full moon she again severe seizure, after which the disease was exacerbated constantly and regularly in accordance with the sea tides. She always lay silently during the entire period of high tide and recovered during low tide.
Although archaeologists and astronomers are ready in principle to agree with the pope's dictum that deep exploration of humanity includes man himself, in archeology, the reconstruction of society begins with artifacts. These are basic materials, but there is a potential danger in these artifacts for us to see in them something more than they actually contain and what they should mean. The speculative interpretation of artifacts often leads to a sharp division of opinion between those who are looking for scientifically significant content in them, and those who see in the same artifacts only ritual and abstract symbols or more pragmatic socio-economic information.
Early artifacts, which could presumably contain human fixation of cyclical processes in nature, date back to the Upper Paleolithic, a period when cave art flourished in a number of regions, including Northwest Europe. Carefully studying the art of the Upper Paleolithic, many scientists looked for mythological and seasonal images in it. Two types of art are widely recognized: the representational and the non-representational. Representative art is considered unambiguous and easy to understand. Animals are clearly represented in the cave drawings: here you can see buffaloes, mammoths, rhinos, lions, horses, goats, deer, bears, whales, fish, snakes and birds. In addition, the drawings captured flowers, trees and other plants. Interpreting non-representational art poses more difficult problems.since it contains elements of mysticism - anthropological figures resemble forest Panov - and anthropomorphic figures and various signs and "decorative" symbols. In addition to representative cave and wall art, we have what researchers have combined in the 19th century under the name of "symbols of fertility", a typical example of which are figurines of full-breasted Venus goddesses of the Upper Paleolithic. They are generally accepted as the prototype of the celestial-earthly mother-goddess or nurse of the later archaeological periods.a typical example of which are the figurines of the full-breasted Venus goddesses of the Upper Paleolithic. They are generally accepted as the prototype of the celestial-earthly mother-goddess or nurse of the later archaeological periods.a typical example of which are the figurines of the full-breasted Venus goddesses of the Upper Paleolithic. They are generally accepted as the prototype of the celestial-earthly mother-goddess or nurse of the later archaeological periods.
Drawings of animals are mainly attributed to cults associated with the magic of hunting and fertility, although drawings of plants can also mean fertility. The identification of species based on morphological characteristics is an interesting guessing game for specialists, but such an occupation, as a rule, does not lead to a deeper understanding of humans in the Upper Paleolithic, except for those cases when these species are included in the seasonal representation and make it possible to determine periods of the year that have a calendar meaning, in particular when depicting known migrating individuals.
The study and interpretation of Upper Paleolithic art is important for identifying its likely influence on the astronomical and mythological "art" of later periods, as reflected in the Sumerian seals and the so-called border stones (kudurra) of Babylon, as well as in polychrome mosaics and vases reflecting legends and myths of the Mycenaean and Minoan civilizations. The bulls of Chatal Huyuk, Crete and Mithra, as well as the cow-headed Egyptian goddess Hathor, are most likely descended from their Upper Paleolithic prototypes, represented in the beautiful cave drawings of the Lascaux grotto. These drawings, discovered in 1940, were widely covered in the press, and rightfully so, as they represent the pinnacle of Upper Paleolithic art in its representative form of "seasonal hunting magic". These wall paintings of animals in the caves of the Upper Paleolithic period,in particular, bulls and bison, may also be the prototypes of celestial images, which later transformed into the zodiac signs of the Middle East. Perhaps even more important are the reindeer antler wands.
Reindeer antler wands have always been mysterious artifacts and have generated much controversy. Until now, no one has been able to say for sure whether their main function was practical or ceremonial. Suggestions for their use include sling handles, clubs, tent pegs, clothing clasps, horse bits, hide sewing tools, magic scepters or staves for ceremony or witchcraft, or rules for arrows and spears. For a long time they were known in archaeological literature as batons de commandement. Perhaps important is the fact that drilling holes in a deer's antler was usually the last step in the production of this artifact, since they sometimes partially disturb the overall decorative pattern.
Figure: 1. Batons de commandement (based on photograph).
Using them as a fastener for clothes is rather inconvenient. If they had no practical application, but carried a ceremonial purpose, then why do many of them have one end broken off? Rather, it can be assumed that they were used as a rule of thumb for arrows or spears, since the drilled holes show obvious frictional wear. This idea is supported by comparisons with similar artifacts used by modern Eskimos to straighten arrows.
One of the most interesting compositions is carved on a broken rod found in the Lorte grotto (Hautes-Pyrenees, France). In this composition, you can see three deer, two of which are males, crossing the river, where several fish are splashing. This image was classified as seasonal, as it may have deliberately indicated the summer or fall movement of salmon (in summer), when the males leave their females. But the most intriguing thing about this composition is the diamond-shaped objects imprinted above the back of one of the deer.
By all accounts, both objects are schematic representations, but what they should mean is another matter. Opinions range from the sun and the moon - "the two eyes of heaven" - to various stellar-solar combinations and fertility symbols in the form of a schematic representation of the vulva or breasts of the mother goddess.
For the astronomer-observer, this type of symbolism may well mean the configuration of two bright stars close to each other (or two planets in closest approach). Such a stellar example is provided by the celestial twins Castor and Pollux (Alpha and Beta Geminorum), possibly setting on a summer evening during the period in question. The choice of Castor and Pollux is possibly associated with symbols of fertility, since twins have been associated with this idea since ancient times. Images of stellar twins are often found on later Babylonian border stones, and in more ancient times, twin stars were often considered "eyes of the night" as opposed to the Sun and the Moon - "eyes of the day." But these ideas are mere guesses. From an astronomical point of view, they can represent the flight of two bright meteors or ball lightning,and in a more mundane sense - to mean only the representation by the hunter-artist of arrows or spears with coarse flint tips. At the same time, the constellations seem to have been depicted in the drawings in La Lileta (Spain) and also in Fratel (Portugal) as a pair. A distinctly solar representation, containing symbolic images (of a person or plants) within the solar disk, can be seen in Los Buitres, and in Pala Pinta de Carlao, two Suns are depicted against a starry background.can be seen in Los Buitres, and in Pala Pinta de Carlao, two Suns are depicted against a starry background.can be seen in Los Buitres, and in Pala Pinta de Carlao, two Suns are depicted against a starry background.
"Rhomboid" images are also found elsewhere in the later period. For example, they are depicted clearly in association with double-eyed oculi and are a typical decorative motif in the megalithic chamber tomb in Newgrange, Ireland. Diamond-shaped artifacts and decorative motifs of this kind are often found in Neolithic contexts as well as on Sumerian seals.
The so-called unrepresentative art of the Upper Paleolithic is attracting a lot of attention due to its possible astronomical (calendar) content. A highly publicized recent study of this issue has been undertaken by the American writer Alexander Marshak, who has collected what he believes to be positive evidence that pre-Neolithic man used a notation system to record the cycle of the phases of the moon.
Marshak was a professional journalist by training and traveled extensively in Asia and Europe. He himself said that he worked as a reporter, critic of literary and dramatic works, an art columnist, photographer, screenwriter, producer and stage director of plays, and wrote scientific journalism. Any of these honest confessions is enough to cause the mistrust of many scientists.
Marshak became interested in solving the problems of prehistoric science when he wrote a popular book about the path that led man to the first landing on the moon. In his later book, The Roots of Civilization (1972), he described his efforts to discover the origins of science and civilization. This proved to be much more difficult than he would have guessed when he realized that there was something missing from the archaeological records.
Marshak presents his arguments in an sometimes picturesque documentary style. The author begins his story when, in April 1963, he read the June 1962 issue of Scientific American, which featured an article about a small, scarred bone found at Ishango, a Mesolithic man site on the upper Nile. An article by the Belgian Jean de Heinselin described the bone itself and gave various interpretations of the scratches made on it. Similar scratched bones of the European Upper Paleolithic were well known, and the scratches themselves were presumably decorative drawings or, with a greater imagination, some elementary digital system, such as counting hunting trophies, etc. The bone from Ishango was dated c. -6500,two or three thousand years earlier than the 1st dynasty of the pharaohs of Egypt and the appearance there of the first known hieroglyphic writing. In this article, Heinzelin expressed the opinion that the bone was the handle of some kind of device for drawing or tattooing. However, its most interesting feature was the group of notches or scratches arranged in three clearly visible columns, which the author initially did not take into account, but then considered an arithmetic game created by prehistoric people who could have a digital system based on ten, as well as some repetitions prime numbers.arranged in three clearly visible columns, which the author initially did not take into account, but then considered an arithmetic game created by prehistoric people who could have a numerical system based on ten, as well as some repetitions of prime numbers.arranged in three clearly visible columns, which the author initially did not take into account, but then considered an arithmetic game created by prehistoric people who could have a numerical system based on ten, as well as some repetitions of prime numbers.
In a dramatic Sherlock Holmes fashion, Marshak recounts how he stared at the photographs and drawings of the bone for about an hour, and then took a coffee break. A dull, blackened, scratched piece of bone simply mesmerized him. There seemed to be something wrong with the accepted explanation. At that time, Marshak was closely engaged in writing his popular book about the moon, which completely occupied his thoughts. He writes, "I tried to guess," and fifteen minutes later, he claims, he managed to "crack the code" of these incisions on the bone. He felt that he was peering into the lunar notation, a system, by reading which one can accurately determine the cycle of lunar phases and periods …
Was it an unexpected insight, a breakthrough in science, like such great scientific events as the discovery of gravity by Newton while observing the fall of the apocryphal apple, or the unexpected insight of Kekulé, who understood the structure of the benzene molecule while dozing in front of the fireplace? Judge for ourselves.
After such an unexpected insight, Marshak began to travel around Europe in search of other artifacts of the Upper Paleolithic. He made his first stop at the National Museum of Antiquities near Paris to inspect its approximately 20 exhibition halls with materials from the Upper Paleolithic period, as well as twice as many such items in various vaults and boxes.
Marshak, in his light dramatic manner, tells us how he walked through the main showroom of the prehistoric period and suddenly felt “the trembling of a man who suddenly invaded an abandoned cemetery. In the musty air of the high-ceilinged stone hall, complete silence reigned ….
In the course of studying many objects from different historical horizons, he discovered several bones, which, he believed, contained the same lunar notations as the bone from Ishango. The drawings were different, but not random as previously thought. He was convinced that all these scratches were made in a certain sequence. When compared to the standard model of lunar notation, they showed reasonable agreement.
Figure: 2: a) badges applied to three planes of a bone instrument from Ishango c. –6500 (based on photograph); b) marks on the bone from Ishango (above) in the comparison made by Alexander Marshak with the model (simplified) of the possible notation of the lunar phases (according to A. Marshak).
To make his job easier and to count small scratches and grooves on various artifacts, Marshak armed himself with a pocket microscope. For long days, he toiled in the sweat of his brow, studying subtle rows of dots and notches in an attempt to match each row with a specific phase of the moon. Under the microscope, he discerned in the notches of some bone artifacts residual traces of red ocher, preserved in the depressions. Marshak wondered if this red oxide had been added to each subset of such notches or indentations as a printing ink, and then transferred to fresh, completely white bone. But he was not completely convinced of this, since he knew that the ancient man also painted corpses, graves and their homes with red ocher. The natives of Australia widely use ocher body painting for ceremonial purposes.
To understand and appreciate the significance of these drawings on the bones of the Upper Paleolithic, you need to know exactly the fundamental movements of the Moon in relation to time. The lunar month has nothing to do with the year and does not correspond to it exactly. Astronomical month - the time interval during which the moon reaches the same point in the sky in relation to the stellar background - is 27 days, 7 hours, 43 minutes and 11.42 seconds. This period does not correspond to the phases of the moon and therefore has no meaning for the calendar. A synodic month is the interval between two young months and averages 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes and 2.98 seconds. This is a real lunar month. Thus, 12 lunar months (12x29 1/2) are equal to about 355 days and are slightly short of a full year (expressed by a time interval,for which the Earth makes a revolution around the Sun in its orbit) for only 10 - 11 days.
Even an ancient man understood that it is impossible to equate months to a year without adjusting one to the other. But, despite this long-recognized disproportion, the month has become a generally recognized component of the year. At the same time, the "month" is completely independent of the moon, although it retains the name "month" as a reminder of its origin.
For ancient and primitive peoples, the Moon provided the only short, fixed dimension of the length of time, beyond such very short dimensions as day and night. Subsequently, these people tried to adjust the year according to the Moon, and this could be done only by taking years of different lengths, respectively, of twelve and thirteen months. But they soon realized that to more accurately capture both seasons and months, it was best to use the "phases" of the stars, since, being dependent on the Sun, they kept pace with the natural year. It also turned out to be possible to correlate the solar year with the annual path of the Sun, especially when using the solstice points.
Yet moon observation is the oldest form of time measurement. Its relatively fast rotation provides an easy-to-remember time period and a natural transition from a “short” day to a “long” year.
But the problem of using the Moon to measure time is related to the need to visually observe it. The first difficulty is spotting a new crescent moon in the evening sky after sunset, and the ability to do this depends on a number of variable factors. First, these are the usual meteorological conditions, such as clouds or fog, then the effect of terrestrial latitude at the point where the observer is located, since the angle of inclination of the ecliptic (the visible path of the Sun) to the horizon varies depending on the season - the lowest in winter, and the highest in summer. … In addition, there is such an important factor as the celestial latitude (declination) of the moon. If, for example, the ecliptic is almost vertical to the horizon, which occurs during the vernal equinox, then the influence of celestial latitude is negligible. At the same time, during the autumn (fall) equinox, this latitude exerts its greatest influence, bringing the moon closer to the horizon or moving it away from it.
For an observer, regardless of meteorological effects, two successive appearances of a new crescent, after the Moon was hidden by the Sun, are always separated by periods of more than 30 days or less than 29 days. Thanks to the odd period of 29 1/2 days, the landmarks observer will find that they are getting different numbers for each lunar month. In addition, each lunar month (closest approach) the Moon is "lost" in the Sun. Thus, the calculating observer, having seen the first gentle crescent in the west (first quarter) after sunset, can put down 27 or 28 marks until the thin crescent (last quarter) disappears into the eastern morning sky. All other things being equal, the next billing period will bring him 29 or 30 marks. But considering the real weather conditions,the actual number of such marks on subsequent observations can vary significantly. If the observer does not see the Moon after the closest apparent approach and continues the countdown of days, skipping the last crescent and moving on to the next first, then the number of marks in his calculations of the cycle can sometimes even reach 33.
To understand Marshak's lunar notation, one must also bear in mind the periods of the full moon, measured in days. It is generally accepted that there are three of them. It is the inequality of notation periods, caused by the difficulties of practical observation, that makes Marshak's ideas rather shaky. If it were possible to accurately determine the periods of the phases of the moon, this would allow for more accurate conclusions about the so-called periods of notation, which, he claims, he found on many artifacts. In this situation, the study of such interpretations is inevitably associated with an arbitrary game of numbers - a fairly common occupation in many areas of astroarcheology, as the reader himself will be able to convince himself later. In the period of two lunar months, or fifty-nine days, such discrepancies can somehow be smoothed out. Marshak demonstrated that some bone artifacts,with which he dealt contain sequences spanning many months, and the calculations themselves are separated by spaces, oblique lines and other signs. To solve these arithmetic sequences, Marshak built for himself a standard model of the lunar month, with which he then compared the results of his research as with a control digital scale.
Some examples of the more modern use of lunar calendar sticks may be mentioned here. They were known long before Marshak began researching materials from the Upper Paleolithic. He also drew attention to them in connection with his own ideas, especially the modern sticks with a lunar calendar from the Nicobar Islands. These white wood sticks with notches look like a knife or scimitar, and the notches are located on the edge and on the plane. Months are marked with oblique symbols, and when all the space is full, subsequent months are marked across the past, resulting in a cross-line drawing (Fig. 3). The marks on these sticks clearly show the days of the waxing and waning moon.
The Pawnee and Biloxi Indians of North America had a similar system and used notches on a stick to count nights and even months and years. A similar system is used in the Balak tribe calendar, which has 12 and sometimes 13x30 squares. For the purposes of chronological control, a bison rib is used, in which 12x30 holes are made (divided into four groups). Every day the fortuneteller - the keeper of the calendar - threads a thread through one hole. In New Guinea, a system was used in which the counting of months was carried out using notches in trees. Not far from the use of calendar sticks is the use of knotted ropes for counting days. This method is used in primitive cultures such as the negritos of Zambala, the Solomon Islands, Western Nauru and the Gilbert Islands. The Peruvians also applied this idea to their kippa.
Figure: 3. Part of the lunar calendar stick from the Nicobar Islands (based on a photograph).
Besides being used for fixing lunar and calendar notations, these sticks had other uses. The aborigines of Australia use writing sticks to convey various information, sometimes even reporting the number of Moons. On wooden artifacts of the natives of Northwest Australia, churing, you can sometimes see schematic maps of the region. At first glance, these drawings look like examples of local abstract designs, but upon closer inspection, they may turn out to be maps of the main rivers of the region and their tributaries. In Northwest and Central Australia, wooden churungs also contain drawings of astronomical objects such as meteor flights, fireballs and comets. To a certain extent, modern aboriginal drawings on the bark of a tree differ from them, which depict constellations and other astronomical objects, as well as the mythology associated with them.
In the context of these ancient ideas, Marshak's thoughts about the lunar notations of the Upper Paleolithic no longer seem to be such unfounded assumptions. Of course, using the method of comparing the present with the past does not yet prove the correctness of the idea, but the examples given show that the meaningful drawings of illiterate primitive people are not limited to any one specific region. Despite this, Marshak's statements were sharply criticized from various directions, in particular from archaeologists and anthropologists (but not astronomers) who specialized in the field of unrepresentative art of the Upper Paleolithic and therefore considered themselves entitled to constructively criticize him. Some have disputed the very idea that such notches represent notation. However, in his study of the Aurignacian bone plate from Blanchard c.–27,000 (Fig. 4) Marshak stated that the various experts with whom he discussed this evidence, almost without exception, agreed that these sequences are notations. The opinions of these specialists spanned disciplines such as anthropology, ethnology, linguistics, semantics, cognitive psychology, brain neurology, and of course archeology.
One of Marshak's harshly criticized ideas was that these markings on the bones were made sequentially with one hand and at the same time. Also criticized was his idea that adjacent groups of such marks were made with different tools and were supposed to indicate individual objects and their individual qualities. According to Marshak, this division into groups was done on purpose. Another highly criticized point related to the so-called sequential microscopic markings, or "invisible scratches," as one observer called them, which Marshak could only see under magnification. In response to this last criticism, Marshak stated that these bones are now faded and their surface is partially destroyed, so the marks that were once clearly visiblenow it is impossible to see without the help of optics. At the same time, one of the main arguments against his interpretations is the question of where, in his opinion, a particular sequence of marks begins and how to count them. According to several critics of his ideas, almost any number can correspond to any lunar phase, since the counting of marks can start from anywhere, move in any direction and make rather arbitrary decisions on the breakdown of these marks into certain phases.since you can start counting marks from anywhere, move in any direction, and make fairly arbitrary decisions about the division of these marks into certain phases.since you can start counting marks from anywhere, move in any direction, and make fairly arbitrary decisions about the division of these marks into certain phases.
Figure: 4: a) a bone plate with drawings from the Blanchard Cave (Dordogne) (based on a photograph); b) a schematic representation of the 2 1/4 lunar month notation traced on the bone from Blanchard according to Marshak's idea.
Marshak emphasized that the notations, which, according to him, he found on objects of the Upper Paleolithic, could not at all be arithmetic abstractions and, most likely, were records of data on actual observations of the phases of the Moon. According to him, the results of the observations carried out night after night were memorized - which seems unlikely - or were recorded in some form that did not come down to us (perhaps, wooden "diaries"), and the final calendar notations or corresponding groups of notes were made only when a series of such observations has already ended [4].
The least convincing artifacts with so-called sequential markings are the Upper Paleolithic Bone Tubes, used by prehistoric cave painters to store paint, similar to those found in the Grotto de Côtes (Vannes), which still hold remnants of red ocher, and therefore their use is not questioned …
Marshak's lunar month notations range from 27 to 33 days, the first and last quarters range from 5 to 8 days, and the periods of the full moon and young moon range from 1 to 4 days, with a tolerance of ± 1 day for observation error. Based on such flexible parameters, Marshak's lunar model can be suitable for any number or sequence of numbers from 1 to 16 and from 26 to 34. The difficulty of accepting Marshak's ideas is also related to the fact that each example he studied seems to require the assumption of "dark spots" or other amendments in relation to these inconsistencies. Quite rightly, critics declared his ideas too mobile, allowing free maneuvering or arbitrarily juggling numbers, adjusting them to the circumstances.
However, despite the negative attitude towards Marshak's ideas on the part of some archaeologists and anthropologists, they still constitute a magnificent groundbreaking astroarchaeological study of the Upper Paleolithic. At the same time, it is impossible to give a final assessment of whether Marshak really made a significant discovery, making a breakthrough in the discovery of a scientifically based culture of the Upper Paleolithic, which he himself indirectly states. His ideas need to be supported by additional evidence.
It seems that there is no doubt that the man of the Upper Paleolithic had sufficient knowledge about the 29 - 30-day motions of the moon, as well as a fairly deep knowledge of the seasons. At the same time, the question arises why he decided to write all this in such an ambiguous way on pieces of bone. Suppose bone is stronger than wood, but a wooden wand would be more practical for the daily writing of countdown marks. If some of the pieces of bone that Marshak studied were intended to be more accurate standards in forecasts, then in practice they were not so accurate as a reference for counting days.
Marshak divided Upper Paleolithic art into two main categories. One, which included the so-called lunar calculations and seasonal elements, he defined as the art of "time factor". Likewise, the art of the Upper Paleolithic, containing elements of myth and legend, he called "narrative."
Marshak's research focused primarily on the non-representational art of the Upper Paleolithic, but at the same time he paid enough attention to the wall cave representational art. The artistic interpretation of the drawings on the walls of the caves is already a widely recognized and completely independent discipline.
Among the artifacts that many consider to be symbols of fertility, one can name the famous figurines of Venus of the Upper Paleolithic, the "mother goddess", or "nurse", which attracted much attention and became the subject of description in numerous literature. In archaeological terms, they are known from the early horizons of the Aurignacian culture and are found up to the end of the Madeleine. Figures of Venus have been found in Britain, France, Italy, Spain, Austria, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Ukraine and further east, up to Lake Baikal.
These Venuses have been found along with unrepresentative bone artifacts (including those that Marshak described as calculated). In appearance, they are plump little creatures with exaggerated feminine features: large breasts, hips and buttocks. Many are carved from mammoth ivory, but one is made of limestone and is known as Venus of Willendorf, after the area where it was discovered in 1908 by one of the workers building the road. The figurine is no more than 100 mm (4 inches) tall and depicts a woman with huge breasts and hips, small arms, and an odd shapeless face.
The proportions of many famous Venuses are so grotesquely distorted that it naturally suggests that they were not realistic sculptures, but objects of some kind of cult of fertility, since they exaggerated precisely those parts of the body that are responsible for childbirth. In some cases, these Venuses resemble wands, and their figures consist of only a pair of breasts, have a vertical shape and are marked with groups of icons.
The birth of man and animal must have been the greatest enigma for man in the Upper Paleolithic. Perhaps the feminine images of Venus personified this biological miracle of birth. It is also impossible not to notice that the lunar and menstrual cycles have similar time frames. It is reasonable to assume that in these figurines of Venus one can see the symbolic meaning of birth and rebirth associated with seasonal lunar and solar rituals, which were formed gradually and later acquired great importance in the cults of the Neolithic times.
According to Marshak, the notched wand of the Middle Laden culture from Charente has moon notation marks, which may also refer to the calculation of the days of the menstrual cycle (Fig. 5). Almost analogous to the Venus figurines is the well-known bas-relief from Lussel depicting a naked woman without a face, holding in her right hand a bison horn with twelve lines drawn on it. This sculptural representation of Venus, carved from a single piece of limestone, was originally painted red. The notches, which are assigned a certain meaning, are called marques de chasse. They are believed to represent the number of animals killed in the hunt. From the point of view of astroarcheology, this relief can be interpreted in different ways. Since the number 13 corresponds to the lunar year, this may well be the calculation of the lunar calendar. It can also be half a lunar month - from new to full moon or from full to new moon. However, until now, one can only speculate whether this horn personifies a crescent or something more earthly.
Figure: 5. Schematic presentation of the marks drawn on the main plane of the bone from Charente and representing a simplified model of the phases of the moon (after Marshak). Presumably, these "lunar marks" could also refer to the records of periods of menstruation or pregnancy, or the time of initiation ceremonies.
When doing astroarcheology, it's hard not to be tempted to play a game with numbers. Since ancient times, numbers have personified a certain magic for humans, and these magic numbers have been accompanying us since the early writing on Sumerian clay tablets. In particular, Soviet scientists (with the help of computers) also seemed to be inclined to play these digital games, deciphering the linguistic structures of the Ancient World. Soviet scientist Boris Frolov, in his article "Astronomers of the Stone Age", suggested that the history of the number seven, which he calls "preferred", can be traced back to very ancient times. Many writers and scientists have studied the number seven, in particular, due to the fact that a number of known constellations contain seven significant members, namely: Ursa Major, Orion and Pleiades. For ancient people, the five planets plus the Sun and Moon represented the most important cosmic seven of all. This same number seven is often found in Sumerian astromythology p. –3000. To later Babylonians, the Naboo ziggurat at Barsipki was known as the "House of the Seven Binders of Heaven and Earth" and is believed to have been painted in seven different colors.
For the Sumerians and Babylonians, the Sun, Moon, planets and stars all personified the heavenly gods and goddesses. In Sumerian writing, the image of the star represented an - "heaven" and the same sign meant dinger - "god". Similar ideas were widespread in Egypt, Anatolia, the Indus Valley, the Shang dynasty in China, Central America and Peru. But long before these civilizations received their development, the man of the Upper Paleolithic already had a cult of the heavenly father, which was intertwined with the cults of Mother Earth. Venus figurines, wand décor, and cave art on the wall represent the concept of seasons - the fertility of Mother Earth. The heavenly father's ideas can be represented separately by the Sun, Moon, planets or stars, or all of them combined. Solar symbols are often anthropomorphic representations. These figures have disproportionately large hands, and their fingers are spread like rays. Petroglyphs in the form of "rings and cups", as well as motifs of a circle and a spiral, characteristic of European megalithic art, apparently also symbolize the sun god and other celestial gods.
The sound of the heavenly father, the extraterrestrial supreme deity, was well known to the Australian Aborigines and the American Indians. They reproduced it with tools like bull-roarer and churinga. The bull-roarer, as a mystical device, spun over his head on a rope and made a mysterious rumbling sound, which was perceived as one of the manifestations of the highest deity. The aborigines made the bull-roarer from wood, bone or stone. Surprisingly similar in shape, bone and stone objects have been found at several Upper Paleolithic excavations such as Pin Hole Cave in Derbyshire, England, along with Mousterian-type objects, and at Lodge Bass and Lodge Haute near Les Eyes. in the Dordon.
The association of the bull-roarer sound with a supreme deity or gods is an example of how primitive people tried to understand the phenomena of nature. When a meteorite falls from the sky, witnesses of this phenomenon sometimes hear almost the same sounds. The phenomenon of this sound is explained by the deceleration of the high cosmic speed of the meteorite, when it, falling into the Earth's atmosphere, makes such a sound. A similar pop can be heard when a supersonic aircraft breaks the sound barrier. In addition to this sonic popping sound, the meteorite's flight is accompanied by a range of sounds, from the sound of a burst of applause, the rumble of a railway express and the hum of a bee swarm, to a calm but intimidating whistle (known as electrophonic noises), which can be compared to the sound of wind playing on telegraph wires. Some of these sounds described above can be reproduced byspinning the bull-roarer.
It is hardly worth doubting that in ancient times the arrival of a meteorite and its fall, with all the accompanying frightening flashes of bright light and eerie sounds, made a deep impression (as, indeed, today) on the witnesses of this phenomenon. Finding a meteorite stone, or, much less often, a meteorite iron that brought with it the sound of a supreme deity, would certainly be considered a highly revered fetish. All that remains is to tie a rope to this object (and later to an object of a similar type that replaces it), so that, by spinning it over your head, you can recreate the same sound - evidence of the presence of a cosmic deity.
Within the described historical times, there is a large amount of evidence supporting the idea of a universal veneration of meteorites. In Ephesus, a stone meteorite served as a symbol of the great mother-goddess of Asia Minor, and, presumably, the holy Apostle Paul told that it was a star that fell from heaven from Jupiter. A black stone meteorite that fell in the 7th century is still present in Mecca embedded in the southeastern corner of the Kaaba, the Great Mosque. This silver-set stone is still the main object of worship, as it is believed to have been a gift from the archangel Gabriel.
A stone meteorite that fell in Japan in the 18th century is given an annual offering at Ogi Shrine. A stone meteorite that fell in India in the 19th century is daily decorated with fresh flowers and oiled with liquid oil, and the place of its fall is preserved as an altar.
Cortez talked about another well-known example of a toad-shaped meteorite that fell on the Cholula pyramid. The Aztecs considered this a sign of the cosmic gods who were angry with the construction of the pyramid.
Even today, the sound of meteorites is often confused with thunder, and it is natural to assume that in the ancient world they were considered part of the same phenomenon. This is unambiguously evidenced by the Egyptian hieroglyph for thunder and meteorite, containing a star. Likewise, the European celestial gods Zeus, Thor, and Dyaus-Pitar were also associated with meteorites and thunder.
Really significant objects are considered to be the rarer iron meteorites with an admixture of nickel, and many ancient and modern peoples made tools and weapons from them. For many races, they were the only real source of metal available. In earlier times, stone meteorites, due to their sometimes unique pear-shaped shape (acquired as a result of flight through the atmosphere), were used as hatchets and were therefore called "thunderstones". Since flints were used for the same purpose, a similar confusing name was given to them (as well as to the fossils). Ancient cultures of ax and double axes are clearly associated with meteorites. The ax symbol can often be found in drawings on stones and walls, and during the Neolithic period in Western Europe, it clearly served as a symbol of the god of heaven, personifying "thunder and lightning",which this god was metal.
In China, two amazing ancient iron axes dating from c. –1000, nearly half a millennium before the beginning of metalworking in China, were eventually identified as items of meteoric nickel iron. In ancient Mexico, Indian plowshares were made from meteoric iron, and the Eskimos of Greenland have long used meteoric iron as material for harpoons.
Apparently, in ancient Egypt, a knife made of meteorite iron was used in the ritual of “opening the mouth” of a dead person, since heavenly iron was considered magical. The hieroglyph for this knife again contains a star. In Assyria, meteorites were directly called "celestial metal". In the Pyramid Texts it was said unequivocally that the deceased person turns into cosmic iron and flies back to the stars. There is also an Egyptian cosmic connection between iron and the Children of Horus, which make up the four angular stars (alpha, beta, gamma, and delta) in the constellation Mes, which is often depicted as the Front Leg of the Bull. The Pyramid Texts also say that the double doors of heaven through which the deceased person passes are made of iron.
Thus, through the veil of time, we can see the close connection of man with the ideas of space and heaven. This began from the time when he created his first bull-roarer, long before man invented writing and outlined his first myths about space and the creation of the world on clay tablets, papyrus, stone or prophetic bone.
Ancient Egyptian texts provide clear examples of how Neolithic man felt about the gods and the cosmos. Osiris was the supreme god. His son Ra, the sun god, could command darkness, which equates to power over life and death. It was sometimes believed that Osiris himself existed in the annual grain harvests or in the floods of the Nile, personifying the fertility of the earth. He was also the Moon or the constellation Orion, which was his sign.
Osiris was also associated with the afterlife, and the greatest dream of a deceased person was to merge with the greatest rhythm of the universe, either as an eternal passenger on the boat of the sun god Ra, or among the circumpolar stars, or to wait for a rebirth with the Moon in his boat, which, like the boat of Ra, floated down the heavenly back of Nut, the great goddess of the sky.
The afterlife was generally invisible, but it was also sometimes called the Field of the Reed, the place where Ra battled darkness every night. Judging by the Pyramid Texts, the Reed Field was synonymous with a cosmic paradise, a place of beautiful roads, where the deceased king accompanies Orion, who is shown the way by Sirius, the Star-Dog. The inscription on the sarcophagus reads:
I walk through heaven, I walk through Nut, My abode is the Reed Field, My riches are in the Field of Gifts.
Egyptian texts are full of cosmic poetry, which was later reflected by the Egyptian astronomer Ptolemy (p. +150) when he wrote: “I know that I am mortal, I know that my days are numbered, but when in my thoughts I tirelessly and eagerly follow the paths of the stars, then I do not touch the ground with my feet: at the feast of Zeus, I enjoy ambrosia, the food of the gods."
It is from the Egyptian texts that we can find out how deeply ancient man was emotionally connected with natural processes. The path of the sun, the rising and setting of the stars and the movements of the moon were firmly rooted in his mind as part of the theology of the farmer and as an unshakable faith.
From the book: “Stonehenge. Mysteries of megaliths”. Author: Brown Peter