Neolithic Cosmology:
Cosmology is as old as humankind. Once primitive socal groups developed language, it was a short step to making their first attempts to understand the world around them. Very early cosmology, from Neolithic times of 20,000 to 100,000 years ago, was extremely local. The Universe was what you immediately interacted with. Cosmological things were weather, earthquakes, sharp changes in your environment, etc. Things outside your daily experience appeared supernatural, and so we call this the time of Magic Cosmology.
The earliest physical evidence of astronomical and cosmological thinking is
a lunar calendar found on a bone fragment in Sub-Saharan Africa dated at
about 20,000 BC. Late megalithic structures with astronomical purpose
appear in Africa and Europe around 5,000 BC (primitive versions of the
famous Stonehenge complex in Britain). It is important to note that these
structures and technologies were constructed by numerous different cultures
which had had no contact with each other. In other words, the conclusions
they reached about the cosmos were universal and the people of time were
willing to commit significant resources to express these ideas.
Early people projected their own inner thoughts and feelings into an outer
animistic world, a world where everything was alive. Through prayers,
sacrifices and gifts to the spirits, human beings gained control of the
phenomena of their world. This is an anthropomorphic (magic) worldview,
of the living earth, water, wind and fire, into which men and women
projected their own emotions and motives as the guiding forces, the kind of
world one finds in fantasy and fairy tales.
The earliest recorded astronomical observation is the Nebra sky disk from
northern Europe dating approximately 1,600 BC (see above).
This 30 cm bronze disk depicts the Sun, a lunar
crescent and stars (including the Pleiades star cluster). The disk is
probably a religious symbol as well as a crude astronomical instrument or
calendar. In the Western hemisphere, similar understanding of basic
stellar and planetary behavior was developing. For example, Native
American culture around the same time were leaving rock drawings, or
petroglyphs, of astronomical phenomenon. The clearest example is found below,
a petroglyph which depicts the 1,006 AD supernova
that resulted in the Crab Nebula.
Later in history, 5,000 to 20,000 years ago, humankind begins to organize
themselves and develop what we now call culture. A greater sense of permanence
in your daily existences leads to the development of myths, particularly
creation myths to explain the origin of the Universe.
Most myths maintain supernatural themes, with gods, divine and semi-divine
figures, but there was usually an internal logical consistence to the
narrative. Myths are often attempts at a rational explanation of the
everyday world, their goal is to teach. Even if we consider some of the
stories to be ridiculous, they were, in some sense, our first scientific
theories. They also closely follow a particular religion, and this time is
characterized by a close marriage of science and religion. We call this
the time of Mythical Cosmology.
Cosmology is as old as humankind. Once primitive socal groups developed language, it was a short step to making their first attempts to understand the world around them. Very early cosmology, from Neolithic times of 20,000 to 100,000 years ago, was extremely local. The Universe was what you immediately interacted with. Cosmological things were weather, earthquakes, sharp changes in your environment, etc. Things outside your daily experience appeared supernatural, and so we call this the time of Magic Cosmology.
