Oldest-known Solar Eclipse Recorded in Stone

XorNand writes: "Astronomy.com is reporting that a scientist, using astronomy simulation software, has correlated ancient stone carvings in Ireland to a solar eclipse that occurred on November 30, 3340 BC. Also interesting are the other pieces of evidence in the area, including the charred remains of 48 people found nearby that were the result of a panicked attempt to appease the sun gods."

Comments

Arrogant Archaeologists

[Katravax]

Archaeologists and historians in general piss me off with their clueless arrogance. Here's a quote from the story:

Some feel the neolithic people lacked the sophistication to memorialize the eclipse in this way.

Do they think that only in recent history have humans become intelligent? Our brain today is the same as theirs. They were just as "sophisticated" as we are. Every time the archaeologists find something new, there are plenty of quotes about how surprised they are at the intricacy of something, or the design of something else. If you believe the archaeologists, nothing mattered to our ancestors but their kitchen utensils and their paintings.

The people in the story were only around 5000 years ago. We haven't changed that much... We see the amazing art and design in Europe from a few centuries ago, lots of long-lasting writing in the Middle East a couple thousand years ago, pyramids and beautiful work from who knows when in Egypt, and we're supposed to think that somehow 5000 years ago in Ireland they were illiterate cave monkeys?

How have archaeologists gotten so arrogant?

Re:Arrogant Archaeologists

[SIGFPE]

It's not a claim that these people were unintelligent. But techniques like representative art are a learnt skill. All through life we discover things that seem obvious after the fact but aren't so obvious a priori. Representative art is one of these. Even recognising art as a representation of something is a learnt skill.

Humans are more than just their physical bodies - they are the products of a culture and those cultures have changed dramatically over 5000 years.

BTW There's every reason to believe that these people were illiterate if not exactly monkeys. Just because some people in Sumeria or Egypt had got the hang of writing it doesn't mean that the Irish did too.

My own misinterpretation of the drawing

[Katravax]

I know the story is being run on April Fool's day, and that makes me a fool for treating it as real, but the story on astronomy.com was posted March 28, so I'll bite.

Does anyone else think these "archaeoastronomers" are full of it? Does anyone else see a sketch of an eclipse here? Their explanation completely ignores the rest of the wall. I would think that someone looking for astronomical explanations of these diagrams on this cave wall would have noticed the following:

Of the two overlapping ringed circles: The "big circle" has a center with nine rings around it. Sort of like the orbits of the planets, maybe? The slightly smaller circle (the center of which crosses what would be Jupiter's orbit) has more rings around it... rings similar to moon orbits around Jupiter. Don't look at it as two circles colliding in 2D, look at it as a blow-up of Jupiter and it's moons.

The other shapes on the wall also resemble orbits... Can anyone count the number of object orbiting the other objects? Do they line up to numbers of moons around planets in our solar system? The picture accompanying the article is so small, and even the "larger view" is pretty low-res. Specifically, the third circle on the right (with a center and three rings), the one to the immediate left of the vertical rings/diamonds on the far right... those little white dots look like several satellites orbiting something.

I'm not saying I'm any more correct than the "archaeoastronomers" are, but if you've got astronomy on the brain looking at that cave drawing, I don't see how you get "eclipse". It's also obvious they're just making wild guesses, so I can too.

Re:Arrogant Critics

[leonbrooks]

The more recent achievements built upon earlier accomplishments.

W r o n g .